Crashmanboy: Remind me again why we are here.
J-Dog: Because Sweet on America is the only place in Manhattan that I can get my blue Cherry Coke.
Funny Man: Well, I need to get some bags of Doritos. I already ate the ones I bought last week.
JD: I don't care where you get your stinking Doritos, just don't make out with Nel in the store like you did at Taco Bell.
FM: Oh, you mean like how you and Thalia were sucking each other's faces back at the mansion?
JD: ...Let's not talk about that anymore, shall we?
The ride to school was quiet. It was appropriate considering that the girls' friends had come back to the school they originally left. Thalia drove without talking, the rest doing the same. The silence was not meant to be, however.
"So they finally came back. After more than a year, our friends are coming back to school with us," the aquamarine haired student council member huffed. Then she gave an evil grin. "I'm giving Randy a piece of my mind for leaving me alone with all the insufferable boys at school!" That was the wrong thing to say as Yoruichi smirked with a mischievous glint in her eyes.
"Oh, does Nelliel love the blond bomber? I wonder how much you missed him?" she snickered.
"Bite me, you she-devil! You should know better than to get on my case about Randy! How's your infatuation with a certain strawberry?"
The mocha-skinned teenager's eyes widened and she blushed faintly, but Thalia was able to see it and laughed out loud.
"Well, well, looks like we all love one of them. Oh don't look at me like that, we all know it's true," the driver of the vehicle chuckled. "I love Percy, you all know that, Taylor's got the hots for Michael, Anna has a thing for Peter, Yoruichi obviously really likes Ichigo, Nel is of course infatuated with Randy, which leaves Tia and Bennett. She cares for him a lot. It's all out there, so that means that no one can tease the others about who they like. Got it?"
They all agreed straight away, none wanting to be a victim of the teasing from the others.
The girls pulled into the school parking lot with thirty minutes left before class and hopped out of the truck, walking to the front entrance where many of the other students were standing and talking to each other. They walked to a corner of the area and waited for the boys to show up. It took about fifteen minutes for them to show up.
They pulled up in the same two cars as before with this time, Shinedown playing in the Challenger and a From Ashes to New song booming from the Mustang. Almost every student turned their head and looked in the direction of the two sports cars.
The boys got out of the cars and looked at each other and nodded. They walked up to the front doors and opened them. Each of them could hear the whispers coming from the other students very clearly. Some wondered who they were.
"Who are they?"
"Do they go here? I've never seen them before."
And others... were just asking for trouble, if what was being whispered was taken into account.
"Ooh la la, Drew likes."
"They look like wusses."
"Great, more arrogant men we can pummel."
The last comment came from one of the girls in silver standing to the side. The boys stopped and eerily turned slowly and stared at the group.
Peter snarked, "I know you. Zoe Nightshade, Lieutenant of the Hunters of Artemis. You've harassed and attacked many boys at this school. Our aunt warned us about your tendencies to attack boys in the name of female empowerment. Your mistress as well as your group as a whole were investigated by the FBI for hate crimes and stalking a popular all male band. Seems like terrorists and criminals aren't just men these days. So tell me Nightshade, do you feel empowered when you get away with hurting males who have done nothing to you or is the excuse 'I'm on my period' no longer sufficient?"
The rest of the students dropped their mouths in shock. No one bad mouthed those girls and got off without getting a black eye and bruises.
Zoe shook with anger. "You arrogant male pig! Who do you think you are?!"
"Someone who has no one respect for people who lord over others just because they believe others are inferior and pigs and someone who just wants to get through life doing what he loves. Now if you'll excuse us, we have to go get our schedules from the front office."
They entered without saying anything else.
"Well that was informative. It looks like they hold a grudge against Zoe and her fellow members. Considering that those girls broke the instruments they spent a lot of time saving up for, they have a right to do so," Taylor said. She looked at her watch. "Come on, the bell is going to ring in ten minutes. We have to get to class."
They entered the building and went to their homeroom and sat down in their seats. The rest of the class entered. All of the girls were in the same homeroom, along with some other friends of the boys such as Ostin Liss, Jack Vranes, Tatsuki Arisawa, Johnny Storm, and Piper McLean.
The teacher came in and stood at his desk. "Alright, class. We have six new students. Please welcome them and treat them nicely. You boys can come in now."
The boys most had seen earlier in the day walked in. They still had their sunglasses on, covering their eyes. They stood at the front of the room and took their shades off and all the girls in the room gasped. They were hot, supermodel hot. Some of the braver girls began drooling, but were quickly shut down by the boys glaring at them. When they glanced over at the six girls sitting together, their glares softened and they smiled. The boys began introducing themselves.
"I'm Randy Isaacson."
"I'm Ichigo Kurosaki."
"I'm Peter Parker."
"I'm Bennett Bordeaux."
"I'm Michael Vey."
"I'm Percy Jackson."
The teacher continued speaking. "Boys, you can take your seats now," the boys walked to open desks and sat down. "Alright class there's two events that I have to announce. First, the school is hosting a singing competition later in January. You can sign up for a spot in the front office, but be warned. There is a maximum of twenty spots available, so it is first come, first serve. Second, the winner of the competition will receive the chance to perform at a year-end celebration for the entire school."
Whispering and murmuring circulated around the room. Except a certain band was doing something else. They just smirked at hearing the news. This was great. If they played at that competition and won, they could potentially reveal who they were at the end if they felt like it. This could be perfect for them.
The class continued for another half hour with the students working on homework or assignments for other classes. But the six girls kept sneaking looks at the boys. It was them. They were really here. And damn, their friends looked good. But where had they been all this time?
"Alright, class is over. I will see you tomorrow." the teacher dismissed them. The students walked out the door to their next class, many of the girls looking at the new students and giggling. The boys saw this and sighed. It was going to be a long day. At least they would be able to see the girls they liked during lunch or downtime.
The rest of the morning went as expected for the boys, getting introduced in their other classes and listening to the teachers drone on about boring subjects, but when lunchtime came, they had no idea where they were going to sit. Unfortunately, Drew Tanaka decided to walk up to them and started getting in their space while she asked them to come sit with her and her friends.
"Oh boys, you know you want to! Just come sit with us. I promise we won't bite." said the scantily clad teenager, giggling like it was the funniest thing she had ever heard of.
They deadpanned at her, then looked at the table where her friends were at, then back at her. 'This chick's looking like she drops it for anyone and anything that's even remotely good-looking and has probably contracted every possible disease from banging it with so many dudes and she ain't nothing I want to get touchy-feely with,' all of the boys collectively thought. 'And the friends are most likely just as bad as her, though Tanaka definitely is in a league of her own.'
The mohawk sporting member of the group put his hands together like he was praying and breathed in and out through his nose. He pointed his hands, still in the prayer motion, at Drew and yelled out, "Be gone, thot! We don't need none of you because we don't need them crabs from you and your posse of switch hitters! This body is off limits to thots like you!"
The entire cafeteria shook with the laughter of the students who were present. The entirety of the room, save Drew and her friends and the Hunters, were in tears from laughing so hard and a couple of students fell out of their seats and were rolling around on the floor. Drew and her friends locked shocked at the boys out right refusing to sit with them. Drew was also incredibly embarrassed at what Bennett had said to her and she walked back to her friends and sat down with her face fire engine red the entire time. Eventually, the commotion quieted down, but the guys could still hear a lot of the students present gossiping about them. 'Let them gossip about us, none of us care.'
The band surveyed the cafeteria. They could already see the cliques and little groups the room was divided into. The jocks sat with the cheerleaders, the geeks and nerds were in a group together, the popular students were situated in one corner of the lunchroom, and so on. Frankly, they wanted to sit with their old group of friends, but the scary part was how the others would react to them coming back after they left without telling anyone. A few would probably want to kick their asses, namely Tatsuki.
"Well, let's get this over with. I just want to see everyone again. Here's to hoping they don't flip out when they see us." Michael said and crossed his fingers with each of his bandmates doing the same. They carried their trays of food they had gotten from the lunchline before Drew had approached them to the table where their friends were sitting.
"Hey guys, can we sit with you?" said Ichigo awkwardly.
A bunch of heads turned toward the boys. Smiles broke out on a certain part of the students sitting there. "It's been some time, Ichigo. You guys look good considering what happened to you and your instruments. Come on, we've been waiting for you to sit with us." said a smiling Yoruichi.
That single sentence took the tension right out of the boys. They sat down and began talking with the others while all of them ate lunch together. They had missed a lot in their time away. Tatsuki had become a high level karate champion, Jack had started competing in amateur mixed martial arts matches, Piper had finally gotten a boyfriend, and Chad was a youth boxer. Man, everyone had big changes in their lives. Then a stray thought hit Randy. 'Wait, if Piper got a boyfriend, does that mean Nel got one as well? If she did, then there goes my chance.' He thought.
Fortunately, Peter asked Tatsuki a question that led to relief for Randy and essentially the rest of them. "So Tats, do you have a boyfriend too?"
"No, most of the boys here are idiots. I'm still waiting for a guy to come along who is my type."
"Oh, so do Tia, Anna, and the others have one as well?"
Nel was quick to shoot that notion down. "No, but each of us have someone we like and we're waiting for them to tell us if they like us or not."
The lead vocalist of the band asked the question the boys were dreading. "Who?"
"We can't tell you, we're still waiting. But what we will tell you is that each of us love the person we're waiting for." the bubbly teen said with conviction. The male friends were surprised at the declaration, but what could be seen in their eyes was longing and hopefulness, although none of the females recognized it.
The touching moment, however, was interrupted by the bell for the next class. The group of friends groaned and started grabbing their stuff to exit the cafeteria. Oh well, they'd meet up after school, no big deal.
The boys waited impatiently in their classes for the final bell to signal the end of the school day, drumming their fingers, bouncing their legs up in down, or (in Ichigo's case) scowling harshly at the clock. They just wanted to get the day over with so they could hang out with their old friends, but time was simply being cruel to them.
The teacher droned on about an unimportant subject (at least they considered it unimportant, who the hell was going to use the quadratic formula in the real world? Nobody, that's who) that the boys weren't the slightest bit interested in. They paid attention, but they just didn't care.
The bell finally rang and the students packed up and left the classroom hoping to get home as soon as possible. They met up with their friends and decided to hang out at a local teen club in the city. Ichigo, Peter, and Percy took the Mustang while Bennett, Randy, and Michael drove the Challenger and the girls took Thalia's Tahoe. Chad, Tatsuki, Jack, and Piper piled into Chad's F-150 and followed the others.
The club was in downtown Manhattan about 15 minutes away from the Empire State Building and was a major hangout for teens from a bunch of different schools, especially Olympus High. It did not serve any alcohol, which everyone was fine with because they did not want to get wasted out of their minds and do something they would regret, but had a DJ, dance floor, a selection of bands who would rotate playing for the club, a stage for the bands to play on, a fully staffed kitchen, and a bar that served a large selection of nonalcoholic drinks, even drinks that normally had booze and liquor in them which would be switched out with other ingredients like juice, soda, and other types of drinks (such as a Mimosa but instead with sparkling juice, not champagne).
This specific club, Soul Society, was the one that the band's old friend Kisuke Urahara owned and ran and where they were going to play at. Urahara was part of the small group of people who knew about Hollywood Undead's true identities, along with their band manager, Apollo Diana, the brother of Artemis Diana, and Hera Juno, who informed their parents when they first got famous. He was also their mentor, considering he had a huge love for music, especially rock and could play almost any instrument and be a master at it. It was him who helped Undead become the megastars they were today by producing their music and assisting Apollo in managing their band. And the boys were forever grateful for his help and made sure to properly thank him as much as possible.
The group arrived, walked in, and immediately went to a large table where everyone sat down and ordered their drinks. They conversed with each other a little bit with Michael asking how each of them had fared after the beatdown and humiliation the band had suffered that caused the boys to leave. According to them, it was not easy handling the fact that some of their closest friends left without saying goodbye and never told them where they went. Percy simply told the others that they had decided to switch to online schooling in order to complete high school without having to deal with the people who hurt them. The girls understood, but they were not happy about it. Their beverages came and the afternoon started getting better.
At that moment, Kisuke decided to pop in. "Well, this is an interesting turn of events. Looks like you boys finally came here after all. I've been waiting for you six to show up." the goofy club owner chirped. He was wearing his usual outfit of jeans, Vans, a button up shirt, and a puffer vest. He smiled at his pupils. To him, Peter, Bennett, Percy, Ichigo, Michael, and Randy all looked extremely happy being back with their friends and loves and seeing their faces alight with joy made his day. He had mentored their rise to stardom even before they became big names in the music industry and been good friends with them for a while. He had seen them at their lowest point and it wasn't pretty. They were depressed after their instruments were destroyed and did not have the money to repair or replace them since they had spent a lot of it on actually buying them.
After a month of depression, Urahara decided to give them instruments that he did not use anymore free of charge as long as they got out of their funk. Their depression stopped and they went back to their old selves and decided to start playing again. They recorded a bunch of songs they had already written with Kisuke producing them and sent off their first album, ironically dubbed "Swan Songs", to Apollo, who got the album published at the recording label he worked at, and their journey began.
Ichigo smiled at the blond man. "It's good to see you, Kisuke. We still on for tonight? Is our slot still there?"
"For you six, always." The club owner walked back to the bar to help out the staff a little bit.
Taylor asked, "So you know the owner?"
Randy nodded. Most of the girls were surprised. Just what had their crushes been up to this past year?
One girl, however, had something else on her mind. Tia was contemplating whether to talk to Bennett and tell him she loved him or not. She missed him all this time and did not want to lose him again. That made up her mind. When the blonde beauty had a chance, she would tell him. And she decided to take her chance now.
"Bennett... will you... dance with me?" nervously asked the tanned girl.
The rest looked at each other and smirked while the punk boy's eyes widened and he nodded dumbly. Tia held his arm and walked with Bennett toward the dance floor. For a good half hour, they danced with each other, just having a good time and blocking out the world around them.
They both were enjoying themselves and the music had switched to another song when she asked, "Can we talk?"
Hearing this worried Bennett. "Something wrong, Tia?"
She bit her lip and looked at him, which was not easy. While she was not a short woman by any means, he dwarfed her in height by a good margin. The teal-eyed woman had to strain her neck a little to look at his face and make eye contact.
When he looked at her eyes, they were watering a little bit. "Tia? Why are you crying? Please don't tell me I did something to make you upset."
"Bennett, we've known each other for a long time and been best friends for almost just as long. When you left Olympus High, I thought I would never see you again. I felt so alone and... I was heartbroken and wanted to be with you wherever you were," She took a deep breath and readied herself for her next words. "What I'm trying to say is that I love you and always have. You are my everything and I—" Tia was cut off by Bennett closing the distance between their faces and mashing his lips against hers. She was shocked at first, but started kissing back with passion. The kiss increased in intensity and turned into a mini-make out session. They eventually had to break apart for air, but their lips were still tingling like they were shocked with static electricity. Both of the teens put their foreheads together and sighed.
"I love you as well. I was so scared that you would not return my affections for you and I didn't know what to do. I have been in love with you since I could understand what you meant to me. You aren't getting rid of me that easily, Tia."
Tia Halibel, the star swimmer of Olympus High School, was crying tears of joy. Here she was, her dream had finally been realized, the man she loved telling her he loved her too. And she wasn't about to let him go. "I don't plan to. Does this mean we're together?"
"Yes, it does."
There was whooping and cheering going on from their friends at the table who had turned to watch the two lovebirds when they got closer to one another. But the couple didn't care. They were together and that's what mattered to them.
The couple walked up to their friends and suggested they all go home. The rest agreed and paid for their drinks, then they walked to their respective vehicles and drove home. There was teasing thrown around by the other girls and boys in Bennett and Tia's direction, but it was all in good fun.
Thalia dropped off the rest of the girls at their houses and went home while the band drove home to their mansion and Chad went home, but not before he dropped off Tatsuki, Jack, and Piper at each of their respective houses.
When the boys got home, they were immediately greeted by Hera who asked how their first day back at the school was.
Percy replied, "It was fine. Nobody remembers who we are except for our group of friends. We ran into the Hunters though, but Peter ran his mouth too much, basically telling them they made excuses for being female supremacists and he had no respect for people like them. We might have to watch our backs after that, they may want payback for us calling them out like that."
"Just be careful. You boys have already suffered enough at their hands. So, did you see the club you're playing at yet?" the woman asked, wanting to know if anything interesting happened.
Ichigo got an all-knowing grin, one that promised pure embarrassment for the bandana-wearing member. "Oh we did. Kisuke was there and he said hello and assured us our slot will always be there for us. And something special happened to Bennett while we were there. Guess who he locked lips with? TIA HALIBEL!"
Hera smiled. "Aw! I'm happy for you, Bennett. She's a nice girl and you've been friends with her for quite a bit of time. And don't think I don't know that each of you are in love with one of Tia's friends! Boys... if you want to be happy and have someone in your lives to love... catch the fish before it swims away and is lost forever."
The boys got a solemn look at what their caretaker said. She was right, they wanted to be with their crushes. They had to act fast or they might lose their chance with them. They had been alone for a long time and it was about time they had someone to love and love them back.
A couple hours later, the boys packed up the band's instruments and equipment and put them in their shared black Suburban. They weren't going to use the tour bus since the band was in school and they did not need to have paparazzi on their asses trying to track them down. It also was not that long of a drive and it was not worth wasting gas. They drove downtown to the club and parked in the back behind the building. Unpacking their gear and bringing it into the back, they began setting the equipment up. After, they went to the locker room to get ready. Kisuke had set them up to be the main event for a good portion of the time they would be playing here and tonight was one of those nights. Hollywood Undead would be the next band onstage, the previous act starting to play their last few songs.
They huddled up together, hoping to get in a last minute pep talk. "Guys, whatever happens tonight, let's just enjoy ourselves. We are at a new stage in our lives, Bennett's finally got the girl he loves, and all of us have a chance to be happy. Alright, let's go out there and put on one hell of a show." said Michael. They placed their masks over their faces and waited behind the curtain.
The band before them had finished and was leaving to go home. Undead got into position with their instruments in hand and waited for the announcer to sound off. He did so within a couple of minutes.
"Ladies and gentlemen, now is the time for the main act of the night! They are the men in the masks, the kings of Los Angeles, the hottest rock band in the world! They are... HOLLYWOOD UNDEAD!"
The crowd went ballistic. They were chanting "Undead Army!" and cheering until their throats were raw. The curtain went up and there they were. Six men in unique masks who had shook the music world with their songs and got the masses back into nu-metal.
Danny just had one thing to say to the fans in the club. "Welcome to the Undead Army." Then the night really got started.
Charlie Scene: Let's get one thing straight, Kurlzz. I never took your hair gel.
Da Kurlzz: Charlie, you have your hair in a freaking mohawk! You use more gel than the rest of us. Of course you took it!
CS: Did you ever realize that the rest of us use gel as well?
DK: ... oh. Well, I can't find it! So... you took it!
CS: God damn it! I did not take your hair gel! I will look for it myself. *looks around in Da Kurlzz's room and bathroom for about 15 minutes* Dude, you are a idiot, it was in your drawers buried underneath everything.
DK: Thanks... but you probably put it there after taking and trying to hide it.
CS: ... You're gonna continue just to piss me off, aren't you?
DK: *gains a shit-eating grin* You know it.
