Chapter 3: Pre-Tour

A few months have passed since Unholy Grail signed their contract to Lezareno. Things went pretty smoothly since they were allowed total creative control on their music. They even got to throw in their own artwork, which Lloyd and Presea tended to handle for the most part. Genis suggested getting Raine as their manager since she was the smartest person they knew and could trust with the business aspects. For now, all of the members of Unholy Grail were returning from getting some food, save for Genis and Raine who were on their way downstairs.

"Hey you guys, I got the finalized bill for all the tour dates and bands we're playing with." Raine said.

The others looked pretty excited for the news. "Ok so what bands are we with?" Lloyd asked through bites of the burger he got.

"First off," Genis said in a deadpan tone, "please stop talking while eating. You know that's a peeve of mine."

Lloyd quickly complied, not wanting to relive another one of Genis' armbars like back in highschool.

"Secondly, listen to this. We're support for Nihilist, who's headlining this. They're calling it the End of the World Tour, going on for about 6 months. We're also going to be with 3 other bands from the looks of it. I haven't heard of them, but I'm sure they're good if they're going to be supporting Nihilist.

Emil and Marta put down their drinks and pulled out their phones, decided to try and do a search on their touring mates. "What are the names?"

"We have Astaroth, Night Raid, and Deadmen."

Marta got her results first. "I found Night Raid. Looks like they're a pretty versatile band from the description. A mix of symphonic, electronic, and death metal ." She pulled up a picture of the members. The first thing they all noticed was the band was made of primarily females. 3 guys were in the picture, with one of them having his instrument slung across his back. They scrolled through their names and roles in the band.

Akame Gozuki – Lead vocals

Tatsumi Saito – Lead guitar

Susanoo Magatama – Rhythm Guitar

Lubbock Matsuoka – Bass, Backing Vocals

Mine Tamura – Piano, Synthesizers

Leone Asakawa – Drums

Chelsea Nazuka –Turntables, Samples

"Holy shit! Chelsea?!" Colette yelled, surprising everyone.

"Wait. Colette do you know her?" Marta asked, voicing everyone's thoughts.

"Yeah. We grew up together. She was a bit of a recluse when we first hung out, but you wouldn't know that by talking to her. Vicious prankster, and we got away with a lot of shit." She looked over to Lloyd and Genis. "I'm surprised you guys don't remember her. Think back to 7th grade science. The Spaghetti incident with the cats."

Lloyd and Genis took another look at the auburn haired girl and remembered the incident. Specifically a bunch of cops showing up at the school.

"That's…..damn that was her?"

Colette smiled, looking back on the prank that her and Chelsea had played. Of course the cops got called but they were never pinned for it.

"I'm surprised she's in a band though. Ok what about Deadmen?"

Emil pulled up their information. "Ok let's see, 5 members. Described as a mix of Melodic Death Metal and Melodic Metalcore. I found a picture of them and their names."

Shiro Rinichiro – Lead Vocals

Ganta Igarashi – Lead and rhythm guitars, vocals

Minatsuki Takami – Lead and Rhythm guitars, vocals

Yo Takami – Bass, vocals

Senji Kiyomasa – Drums, Percussion

"Ok and Astaroth?" Marta requested.

Emil looked them up and found them quickly. "Nu Metal group. 4 members currently. Here they are."

Catherine Bailey – Vocals

Vincent Brooks – Guitars

Jonny Ariga – Bass, Vocals

Tobias Nebbins – Drums

"I couldn't find a picture of them though, but they might end up walking in sooner or later so we'll just wait." Emil said, putting his phone away and walking in. After hanging out for about an hour. Everyone, minus for Genis and Presea went back home to pack. The two sat down in the lounge watching TV.

Ok Genis, you're alone with her, just talk to her, see if there's any type of indication of what she thinks of you…. Genis' mind was rushing with thoughts, trying to work up the nerve.

"Umm…. Presea…" he muttered. Luckily, Presea heard him just enough.

"Yeah?"

"I was wondering…. If maybe sometime you wanted to-" His sentence was cut off by a tennis ball hitting him square in the back of the head. "Ow! The hell was that?!"

"Oh my god I'm so sorry!" He heard a feminine voice apologizing, but was still very pissed off at what happened.

"Hey everything ok?" A male voice asked coming into the room. Genis turned around to see the source of the voices. The girl was blonde, a bit older than them, and had a very slender body. She wore a simple white shirt with a black and red jacket over it, and a pair of form fitting jeans. The one thing he noticed near instantly was her hair. She had swirls coming out of both sides, which somehow stayed in place and defied gravity. The guy had thick, somewhat messy looking hair and some fuzz that would be an embarrassment to call a beard. He was wearing a zipped up Rage Against the Machine Hoodie and some black jeans.

"Sorry bro, you ok? I know I threw that ball pretty hard. I should've known she wouldn't have been able to catch it."

"Eat me, Shaggy." The girl said.

"Genis you ok?" Presea asked worried.

He fought off a blush before repling, "I'm fine. Careful with that though man. Pretty sure you could knock someone out cold like that."

Before the guy could respond, the girl got closer to Genis and Presea. "Wait, Genis? As in Genis Sage? From Unholy Grail?"

The drummer raised his eyebrow in interest and confusion. "Yeah why?"

"Oh cool! We're touring with you guys starting next week!" She said.

Presea asked before Genis could, "Oh you two are from Astaroth right?"

"Yep! I'm Catherine Bailey! Best rapper and singer you'll ever meet! That guy right there is Vince."

He quickly glared at her for a second. "I told you to stop calling me that. It's Vincent."

"Just ignore him. So I've actually been to one of your shows, when you guys opened for Seraphim back a few months ago. You guys are fantastic." she complimented before getting closer to Genis and saying in a tone that could be taken as seductive, "Especially you."

"Umm…. Uhh thanks…" Genis stammered. He couldn't deny that Catherine was attractive, but he wasn't the best with girls. Plus his crush was right beside him.

Presea started getting irritated by this greatly. "Well we gotta go, pack stuff up before the tour and all." She grabbed Genis by the arm and yanked him up. "Come on, Genis let's go." Without even looking back at either Catherine or Vincent, she walked full speed out of the building and towards Genis' car. It took a second to find since it was dark now and his car was dark blue.

Genis pried himself out of Presea's grip, though he did enjoy the contact. "Presea what was that about?"

Presea didn't look at him so he wouldn't the creeping blush coming up on her face. "Nothing. I just… wanted to get out of there really fast…" she lied.

Genis was skeptical, and knew when Presea was lying. "It doesn't have anything to do with that girl does it?"

"No! I just… nevermind. Can we just get back to the house?" Presea asked.

Genis didn't question her anymore since he knew he wouldn't get any answers out of her.

After arriving back to their temporary home, Presea went straight to her room and closed the door. Genis sat down on the couch where Lloyd was playing video games. After conversing about the game for a couple minutes, Genis told Lloyd everything that had happened after they had left.

"Dude, I think she's got a thing for you." Lloyd said after pondering it for a minute.

"I think that's obvious. That weird girl probably would've tried to rape me if Presea and that Vincent guy wasn't there."

"Well her too, but that's who I was talking about….." Lloyd said, trailing off hoping that Genis would get the message.

"…..wait do you mean…. Lloyd it's not like that between me and her…" Genis said, sounding depressed.

Lloyd decided not to push on the subject any further since it would go nowhere. "If you say so, but you never know…"

Numerous thoughts swam through Genis' head. Why did it have to be me? I'm pretty sure that girl could've done that with anyone else so why me? And there's no way Presea likes me. We're just friends, as much as I hate saying it… Then again I've never seen her like that before…. No Genis, you're reading into this too much. Just calm down.

Genis decided to play games with Lloyd until he fell asleep that night. Hopefully shit will be a bit more normal by the start of this tour.