Chapter Five: Pop! Go The Guitarists


It was what every frat boy called his humble abode, and what every parent deemed a hideous nightmare: tattered furniture scattered sparsely here and there, a worn and ripped fuzzy pink shag of a carpet, mountains of beer cans and wine bottles, posters of half-naked swimsuit models and guitar gods serving as wallpaper...and even two teenage boys passed out cold on a tattered old couch, bottles of cheap vodka and even cheaper wine still lodged in between them. Suddenly, the door to Apartment No. 666 slammed wide open, and an uncharacteristically furious Roxy Oyama stormed in, glaring murderous daggers as she surveyed the scene and ignoring the horrendous screeching of someone belting out showtunes in the showers. Her eyes settling on the two boys slumbering peacefully amidst the beer cans and Jack Daniel's, Roxy let out a little growl, before she stalked purposefully toward the duo and seethed furiously, "All right, you two little jackasses! Up! Up! Get up if you know what's good for you!" And without waiting for the drowsy boys to fully recuperate from their previous night of heavy drinking, partying, and hell-raising, Roxy grabbed both by their ears and pulled them up painfully.
"Ow! Owowowow!" Lance and Pietro whined, as the enraged Roxy dragged them up and through the sea of empty and crushed beer cans. Jericho, wearing only a towel and nothing else, stopped trilling out his atrocious version of "(Oh) Pretty Woman" as he peeked out curiously from behind the bathroom door, as Roxy shoved Ömega's own Toxic Twins out of the apartment.

"Ow! Hey, watch the hair!" Pietro grumbled, as the furious producer roughly dragged him out of the apartment. Lance winced, before muttering, "Yeah, what's your problem, Rox?"
"Hey, maybe it's that time of the month again," Pietro giggled into Lance's ear, trying to keep his voice down but unable to do so due to still being rather wasted from the previous night's drunken escapades. Lance laughed loudly, even though had he been sober he wouldn't have graced such words with much more than a snide smirk or two. Unfortunately for the Toxic Twins, however, Roxy was in no mood to be hassled, as she turned around and promptly bitch slapped the living daylights right out of the duo.
"Ow!" both echoed at the same time, raising hands to identical red marks slashed across their cheeks, before Pietro pouted, "What was that for?"
"That was for insinuating that I had PMS," Roxy seethed. She then raised one of her spiked-heel-adorned feet, and kicked them in the shins. As Lance and Pietro hopped about and sulked, Roxy added, bristling, "And that was for what you two did to my car!" Lance and Pietro stopped amidst their kangaroo imitations, blinking wide clueless eyes, before Lance echoed stupidly, "Your car?"
"Yes," Roxy hissed, "my car!" And she swept her hand to her nice, new, steely black Mercedes SUV, which, over the course of the night, had somehow wound up halfway submerged in the dinky pool, trailing pieces of the chainlink fence and pine trunks behind it, motors still running and radio blaring Nirvana at ninety decibels.
"Oh." Lance and Pietro turned to look at the ravaged car, before bursting into giggles. Roxy glared at them incredulously.
"What the hell are you laughing about?!" she steamed. Lance stopped laughing for a second, long enough to sputter out, "You were listening to Nirvana."
"Yeah, I thought Roxy Oyama, Super Producer, was far too good to listen to, and I quote, grimy, grungy, greasy-haired, flannel-wearing, goatee-sprouting Seattle stoners who look and, more like than not, smell as though they've just woken up from their beds in the Salvation Army's storage bin!" Pietro snickered, clutching his stomach. Roxy looked positively incensed, as she screeched at the boys, "That wasn't me who was blasting Seattle grunge in my car, that was you guys!"
"Huh?" Lance and Pietro looked confused for a second, before Lance made a half-hearted attempt to snap his fingers as he remembered.
"Oh, yeah." Turning to Pietro, he chirped brightly, "We borrowed the nice lady's car last night to go to the photo shoot for that local guitar magazine, remember?" Pietro hiccupped, before nodding.
"Oh, yeah," he drawled lazily. Roxy bristled, as she hissed through clenched teeth, "Borrowed?! You two assclowns freakin' jumped into my car while I was unloading the groceries and took off, yelling, "Jerónimo!"
"Bleh, borrowed, hijacked, same difference," Lance hiccupped, swatting one hand back and forth as if to demonstrate the simplicity of the whole thing.
"Grrr..." Roxy looked like she wanted to strangle Ömega's Toxic Twins.

Fortunately for Lance and Pietro, Jennifer intervened just in time, as she pulled up in a beige Corolla and got out of the car, right when Roxy was moving in to kill the Twins.
"Hey, glad to see you two are up so early," the pretty brunette manager called out, sounding surprisingly cheerful as she pushed her sunglasses into her hair, especially considering the fact that only a mere week had passed since she'd had to bail the band out of jail for assaulting a critic.
"...I'm telling you, that...that...evil dictator chick, whatever her name may be, is about to kill our new guitar players!" Jericho's voice drifted over, as the blonde drummer, still clad in only a skimpy towel, dragged a pissed-looking yet somehow already glammed out Rikki and a sleepy, pajamas-clad Morgan clutching her psychedelic giant pink teddy bear out of the apartment. The trio stopped, when they saw Jennifer, Roxy, and the perfectly unharmed Lance and Pietro, save for one painful-looking red slap mark apiece. Jericho frowned.
"Hey," he grumbled, "everyone's still alive!"
"That's right, and it's a good thing, too, because Roxy has already scheduled publicity appearances to promote Ömega's upcoming debut album for all five of you today," Jennifer spoke up. Jericho scrunched up his perfect face when he heard her speak, as he turned to look at her, blinking wide innocent eyes.
"Hey...I know you," he mumbled. Jennifer rolled her eyes.
"Well, I should hope so, seeing how I've been managing this band for the past two years--against my better judgment," she muttered. Jericho was snapping his fingers, struggling to remember.
"You're...Janet...Janine...Geri..." he murmured, ticking the names off on his fingers. He suddenly lit up, as he exclaimed proudly, "Oh, oh, I know what your name is! It's Jericho! Oh, no wait, that's my name!" Jennifer threw up her hands in frustration, and snapped, "Forget it! You'll never learn my name, you blonde airhead!" Roxy, meanwhile, who'd forced herself to calm down over her destroyed Mercedes SUV, had reverted back to her usual take-charge professional attitude, as she barked out instructions at the band.
"Listen up, all five of you--especially you, Jericho--go get dressed! Rikki, you're supposed to do an interview for rock radio station 107.7 WHIP today, Lance and Pietro, you guys have been booked to drop by the local music channel for their daily edition of Pop! Goes The Music Video, and Jericho and Morgan, you two have been granted the cover story in next month's edition of a local rock & roll magazine, meaning you'll meet with a reporter at the coffeehouse in about two hours."
"Jeez, all right, all right," Jericho grumbled, and began heading back to the apartment, using one hand to keep his towel around his waist rather than at his feet, while Morgan chirped brightly, "Aye aye, cap'n!" Rikki glared, discreetly giving the producer the finger as he retreated to his room, and Lance and Pietro, still feeling the effects from the previous night's drunken partying, giggled, hiccupped, and hobbled their way to their rooms to get dressed.


Pietro paced nervously back and forth in the television station's waiting room, fidgeting around as he waited for the cue signaling it was Ömega's turn to go on. Lance, meanwhile, calmly sat on a leather couch, flipping casually through that month's issue of Guitar World, which sported a cover shot of Creed's own Mark Tremonti tearing through a six-string amidst a fiery explosion of red-hot pyro. The dark-haired guitarist barely glanced up as a bored and antsy Pietro zipped aimlessly around the room, before boredly saying as a gust of wind breezed through his hair, "Hey, calm down there, little buddy. It's just an interview; they're not asking you to play to Mystique or anything like that." Pietro stopped running around, as he fretted, "I know, and I'm not worried about appearing on live TV or anything like that; I'm just wondering what's taking them so long! Surely no guest is interesting enough to go on before me...unless they're actually saving the best for last!" Lance snorted, before returning to his magazine.
"Sure, delude yourself into thinking whatever you want," he muttered. Clearing his throat and speaking in a louder voice, he added, "But stay still, would ya? People are bound to come in here and notice something's up...and besides, you wouldn't want to muss your perfect hair right before appearing on live TV, now would you?" Pietro eeped in a squeaky voice, and obediently sat down, as Lance snickered and resumed browsing, adding under his breath in an amused voice, "Sucker."
"Hey!" Pietro pouted. "I heard that!"

Just then, one of the technicians peeked his head into the room, calling out, "All right you two, you're on in five, gotcha?"
"Sure, whatever," Lance muttered, barely glancing up from his magazine, while Pietro busied himself with critiquing the awful decor of the studio. Taking notice of the massive posters of some new pop princess called Alison Blair, Pietro ooh-ed, "Damn, look at how big and tacky those things are!" Unfortunately for the smaller half of Ömega's own Toxic Twins, right about that moment, a rather, ahem, well-proportioned forty-three-year-old producer walked into the room, just in time to hear the silver-haired rock guitarist's remark about the Alison Blair posters and assume he was talking about her two bouncing little friends. Her eyes widened in anger at the rude comment, as she vowed to do something about it.

"Hey! Ow! Quit it, ya old hag, I wasn't talking about your drooping thousand-year-old boobs! Hey! Owie owie owie! What did you do that for?!"
Five seconds later, Pietro was running frantically around the room--at a painstakingly normal pace, since he didn't want to give away the fact that he was a mutant--being chased by the furious forty-three-year-old producer and getting clobbered over the head by her massive...purse (what did you think I was gonna say?) every now and then, while Lance watched on in amusement.


"Thanks for dropping that coffee table on her," Pietro panted, standing gingerly behind the curtain waiting for his cue to go on. Lance shrugged.
"Hey, no prob," he replied pleasantly. "That's what friends are for, right? She'll wake up with a concussion, forget everything that happened, and blame her work schedule for her pounding headache before going to whichever executive has the pleasure of working with her to demand a well-deserved vacation."
Pietro gingerly tested out a painful red bump that was beginning to form on his perfect cute head, and grimaced before huffing, "Not that I'm not grateful or anything, but did you have to wait until five seconds before we were to go on to knock her out?"
Lance shrugged again.
"Hey, it was fun watching you run around with a fifty-year-old grandma chasing after you with her handbag," he snickered. "Should have gotten it on tape, then I could have submitted it to America's Funniest Home Videos or something like that, and made a hundred bucks."
Pietro glared at him, but before a fistfight could break out between the Terror Twins themselves, a very familiar, Southern-accented, highly grumpy female voice announced, "And that was that...video..."
"Objection: Tango," her male co-host filled in, chirping out the words like the excited leader of the teenybopper army that he was.
"Yeah, whatever, from that annoying bleached blonde bimbo from Barbie Hell with the ear-grating voice," his petulant co-hostess grumbled.
"Aw, you mean the sizzling Shakira, don't ya?" the guy piped up.
"If you say so." One could tell with no trouble that his co-hostess was rolling her eyes, without even needing to look at her. She cleared her throat, as she added, "Anyway, our last guests for today hail all the way from the rock & roll club scene of New York. Please welcome the guitar players for Ömega, heavy metal extraordinaires deemed the next Guns N' Roses--only hopefully without the in-fighting and eventual break up!"
Silence. Crickets chirped. The grouchy hostess remarked snidely, "Oh, yeah, I forgot, you mindlessly giggling yahoos have no idea who the original lineup of Guns N' Roses are."

Lance and Pietro emerged from the back and onto the makeshift podium where the music talk show was being shot, greeted by a round of mindless screaming from the hyper schoolgirls and their spineless boyfriends they'd dragged along with them. The hostess, decked out in a hideous pink sweater top and bell-bottom jeans and with microphone in hand, turned around to greet them, before her mouth dropped open in recognition, as she gasped out, "Oh, good grief! Lance, Pietro...you're the rock guitarists of underground sensation Ömega?" Lance and Pietro, meanwhile, gawked in openmouthed amazement at the pink-and-blue-clad hostess, before Lance squeaked out, "Rogue?!" at the same time that Pietro wailed, "What the hell did they do to your hair?" Rogue gingerly patted her bubblegum-pink pigtails, as she groaned, "They said that my regular appearance might scare the teenyboppers, and then attacked me with pink hair dye and pastel ribbons!"
"Oh, wow! Who'd have thought you actually have color in your cheeks? I mean, gee, with that pasty white face and the black makeup, we were beginning to think you were a permanent KISS groupie wannabe or something!" Lance, having gotten over his initial shock of finding out Rogue of all people was the hostess of the teenybopper crapfest, remarked snidely. Rogue glared at him, before gritting out through clenched teeth, "My, one of these days, you must tell us how you got into a band without even knowing how to tell a bass from a regular guitar!" Lance blushed furiously, as Pietro chirped, "Hey, how'd you know that?" Rogue blinked in surprise, before exclaiming in delight, "You mean you really couldn't tell a bass from a guitar?!" Lance's face turned even redder, before he mumbled defensively, "Hey, at least I didn't mistake a freakin' cello for a guitar!" At this, Pietro began to blush, as Rogue alternated between staring at Lance to staring at Pietro, olive-green eyes alive with amusement.

"Hey, it appears as if our very own Rogue knows these two hard rock guitar players," the voice of the male host chirped brightly, as Rogue's eyes widened. "Why don't we give them a great big hearty Pop! Goes The Music Video welcome?!"
At his words, the teenyboppers started screaming their lungs out on cue, and Rogue's eyes widened, as she moaned, "Oh, no! Not again! Not so soon!" As Lance and Pietro stared dumbfounded at the shrieking teenyboppers, Rogue sighed, grouchily snapping, "Yes! Yes, I'll admit it! This is where I've been working for the past three months!" Meanwhile, her male co-host was bubbling happily, "Now, since we have two of those nice rocker people here, it's only fair we even things out by bringing out the one, the only, pop princess Alison Blair!" Pietro's eyes widened, as he remember the big, tacky posters--and then the fat dinosaur who'd repeatedly clobbered him over the head with her purse--as the teenyboppers screamed and cheered, Lance grimaced and covered his ears, and Rogue groaned, "Great, more of those yahoos!" Her co-host had one of those stupid grins on his face, as he shrugged, "Hey, the more the merrier, I always say! All right, guys, please give a big Pop! Goes The Music Video welcome to the always dazzling Alison Blair!"

Cheesy, upbeat, tooth-decayingly sweet music started playing, and it took Lance and Pietro a total of five minutes to figure out it was actually pop, as a pretty blonde girl dressed in clear green shades and a ridiculously expensive designer pink tank top that anyone could have gotten for five bucks at the local thrift store entered the room. And, just in case somebody didn't know who she was, the name ALISON was printed in diamond lettering across her chest. She grinned in that nauseatingly sweet way, blowing kisses to the audience of screaming teenyboppers as she happily bounced her way onto the stage, while Rogue muttered grumpily, "Let's welcome the dazzling Alison Blair."
"Now," Rogue's co-host was chirping, "what we're going to do here is play a very fun game with Ali and the boys! Yay!"
"Oh, wow, I can't wait," Rogue muttered sarcastically, as the teenyboppers cheered and the insanely bubbly Alison jumped up and down and clapped, and Lance and Pietro just stared boggle-eyed.
"What we're going to have to do, is to give you lucky guitar slingers the chance to win a date with the sexy Miss Blair!" the co-host was chirping. "Now, this is just like the dating game, in which Alison will ask both of you a number of allotted questions, before choosing one of you lucky guys to be her date for the evening! Doesn't that sound totally awesome?!" As the teenyboppers cheered and a preening and smiling Alison danced her way to her pink chair, blowing kisses all the way, the dazed Lance and Pietro were shoved into their seats and handed cordless microphones with which to answer.
"Go ahead, Ali, these wild rockers are all yours." Apparently, wild rocker in teenybopper language was two dazed guitarists who'd gone into culture shock upon hearing the tooth-decayingly sweet teenypop music.
"Um...okay," Alison mumbled. Turning to face Rogue, she hissed, "What am I supposed to say to them? I've never hung out with bad boys before!" Rogue scowled, preparing to tell the teen queen exactly what she thought of her...before an idea suddenly occurred to her. Eyes gleaming mischievously, Rogue leaned in and whispered something to the blonde pop tart. Alison's gold eyebrows nearly flew off her forehead, as she asked, "Are you sure I should tell them that about me?" In response, Rogue only gave an evil grin, which the pop tart happily mistook for a reassuring smile, and chirped, "All right, then!" Clearing her throat dramatically, Alison blurted out brightly, "I'm a size 34C! What about you guys?!" Lance fell off his chair, as Pietro struggled to remember what exactly a size 34C was, and then fell off his chair.
"Uh, Alison..." The male co-host quickly rushed up to whisper something into her ear, darting a nasty look at the gloating Rogue, and Alison finally nodded brightly.
"Oh, okay then," she chirped. Turning to face the two rockers, she sang out, "Like, um, Hunky Guy Number One--" Pietro was wearing the number one tag, with Lance sporting number two, "--from what you can see right here, if you had to describe me with a type of food, what would it be?" Pietro struggled to return to his seat, pondering over this subject, but before he could reply, Lance had already snorted and muttered snidely, "Certainly not a cherry, that's for sure!" Alison looked offended.
"Hey, just what makes you think I'm not as cute and sweet as a little cherry?" she huffed, before clearing her throat and muttering, "Never mind! If you're so smart, then here's your question: In your opinion, who's hotter: Justin or Enrique?" Lance stared boggle-eyed at her.
"What kind of crappy question is that?!" he exploded, as the teenyboppers and the co-host all gasped at the obscene word, while Alison covered her head and wailed, "My virgin ears!" Pietro began to look wary.
"C'mon, Alvers, let's get out of here before they decide to lynch us or something for being obscene," he muttered. Lance shrugged, casually following Pietro in exiting the room. Alison, meanwhile, was staring wide-eyed at the two departing guitarists, before her lips began to tremble and she wailed, "You...you're standing me up?" At her words, the co-host gasped, turning to his army of teenyboppers and saying in a dead serious tone, "This is blasphemy! How could anyone dare stand the dazzling Alison Blair up?!"

"Uh oh..." Despite the fact that she usually hated the Brotherhood's guts--especially after the whole KISS thing--Rogue decided that nobody, not even the Brotherhood, deserved that cruel and unusual a punishment: Death by teenybopper. The usually cold and sarcastic young woman quickly turned to Lance and Pietro, and pushed them off the stage.
"Quick!" she instructed frantically. "Get out of here while you still can! This is only the first stage! Run! Get out of here before they take you too!" The two Ömega guitarists responded with confused and bewildered stares, but one good look at Rogue's terrified expression, then at the hysterically wailing and screaming teenyboppers, and the two so-very-tough Brotherhood bad boys promptly split, getting the hell out of the Pop! Goes The Music Video studios as fast as...well, as the considerably lighter Pietro could drag Lance with him. With the angry teenyboppers hot on their heels, the two pulled the driver out of the nearest car--which just conveniently happened to be a nice, new red Mercedes Benz--and jumped into it after having sacrificed the ponytail-sporting owner to the teenyboppers by throwing him into a ditch to serve as a temporary obstacle for the swarm of schoolgirls and their pathetic spineless boyfriends ready to put them on trial for standing up one of their teen idols. Gunning the engine, the two promptly took off in their second hijacked car in one week (the first being Roxy's prided Mercedes SUV). Lance glanced back at the Teenybopper Army, and noted with relief that they were growing smaller and smaller with each car that swerved out of Pietro's way as he drove recklessly toward the apartment.
"Whew," Lance mumbled, sinking back into his seat, "guess we lost 'em." He then began patting his pockets, and a frown knitted his eyebrows, as he muttered, "Oh, great. I think I lost our keys!" Pietro flushed guiltily.
"Eh heh...that would be me who lost our keys," he eeped, as Lance turned to him and groaned, "Maximoff!"
"Hey, this is the thanks that I get for saving you from those teenyboppers?" the silver-haired rhythm guitarist mumbled defensively. He then shrugged, adding, "Hey, don't worry--I'm sure Rikki's home by now. He'll let us into the apartment."


*Hey, Random Insanity, I really like your idea for having the old band members--especially the ones who have issues with the current ones--come back and raise some hell! I'm going to incorporate that into Rikki's radio interview next chapter *evil grin*.