By: Vera-chan a.k.a. Arwen
Disclaimer: Go back and read it because I'm too lazy to type it…
Chapter 2
Riku was met with annoyed stares from Leon, Cloud and Reina upon entering the music room with Vera. Leon and Cloud were the other two members of The Broken Souls; their band. Cloud and Leon were both seniors; a year ahead of Riku. Leon played keyboard and backup guitar while Cloud was the drummer. Riku was the lead guitarist and singer.
Reina was a senior also, she was Cloud's girlfriend. She had short black hair and deep brown eyes. Reina wasn't in the band, she helped set up equipment and did anything else the band needed her to do.
"Uh..sorry guys. I ran into someone in the hallway," Riku sweatdropped, motioning to Vera, who was setting her stuff down with everyone else's. "She's new here and needed to find the music room. She can supposedly play the guitar," the silver haired teen said, trying to redeem himself from being late.
The others looks softened when they heard she could play.
Vera turned to the band, having noticed the conversation had turned to her as the subject.
"Are you guys in a band?" she asked.
"Uh, yeah," said Cloud. "We're having tryouts for a bass player and we hear you can play the guitar. Would you be interested in trying out?"
"I don't know, never been in a band before. 'Sides, my guitar playing is crap," she shrugged.
"If you're in this music class, it can't be too bad," Reina said, thinking the redhead was just being modest.
Mrs. Otaku, a middle aged woman with graying hair, walked into the room.
"Oh, I see we have a new student. What's your name, dear?"
"Vera Asher. Here's the note from the principal." Vera threw the folded piece of paper like a discus and it landed right on top of the music teacher's head.
"Ah, thank you Miss Asher," Mrs. Otaku said, taking the paper off her head. "You should try out for discus for track and field this year."
The music class just watched Vera flip off the teacher behind her back as Mrs. Otaku walked away.
"I hate sports…" Ver said, making a face.
Riku couldn't stop himself from smiling amusedly at her.
"Well the people trying out should be here any minute. Vera, if we don't find someone we like, will you try out?" Leon asked.
"I guess…" the redhead relented.
Leon, Cloud, Riku, Reina, and now Vera were the only students in Mrs. Otaku's advanced music class. Reina played the clarinet beautifully along with helping the band.
Soon, students started arriving and signing up to try out.
Riku recognized a few people from his classes. Tidus, a boy in his math class with sandy blond hair, was on the blitzball team. Riku didn't care for him or his preppy/jock friends. Tidus was probably looking to get into the band to become more popular and impress his friends.
The Broken Souls loathed the popular kids: Tidus, Wakka, Sora, Selphie and Kairi. The Broken Souls was a punk band; they were all punks.
The band sat at a table with Reina and Vera while students showed their bass skills on one of the spare guitars. No one showed much talent.
Leon and Cloud commented to each other throughout the tryouts. Riku tried to pay close attention to the students but his thoughts kept wandering to the new girl. He would occasionally look past Reina at Vera to catch a glimpse of the redhead.
Ver always looked really bored. Riku caught her doodling a comic strip on a scrap of paper. The first panel had a stick figure playing a guitar. Then there were other little stick people running around covering their nonexistent ears screaming: "God! Make it stop!" In the next panel, there was a hand coming down from the clouds and pointing at the guitar-playing person. A bolt of lightning came from the finger of 'God' and zapped the person. The final panel depicted a pile of ashes with a guitar laying on it and people shouting: "Hallelujah".
Riku tried to hold back his laughter, but the poor guy wasn't very good at it.
He earned glares from everyone except Vera, who was completely oblivious.
"Well, that was the last one…" said Leon after they turned down the final mediocre bass player.
"Vera? Can you show us what you can do?" asked Cloud.
"Sure. But be warned…I can't play for beans." The new student walked over to her guitar case and opened it up to reveal a spotless electric blue guitar with black around the edges.
"If you don't mind, I'd like to use Dennis, my guitar," Vera pulled the strap over her head and walked back in front of the band. "What should I play?" she asked.
"Anything you want," Leon answered.
"Okay…that helped a lot…" Vera said sarcastically. "Fine, I'll just play this."
The sixteen-year-old pulled a guitar pick from her black and red checkered pocked and plugged 'Dennis' into an amp. She positioned her fingers expertly over the strings and started playing the guitar solo from "Holiday" by Green Day.
Vera seemed to get caught up in her playing; she barely noticed the others were there. The band members, along with Reina, stared at the new girl in awe as she continued to play.
When the redhead finally stopped playing, she said: "Man! That really sucked!" and made a face.
"What the hell! No it didn't!" exclaimed Cloud.
"That was awesome!" Reina cried, clapping.
"You were very good," Leon commented.
"YOU'RE IN!" cried Riku, standing up.
"I agree, what do you think Cloud?" seconded the brunette band member.
"Definitely! She's great! She could even have Riku's spot as lead, eh, Riku?" the blond senior nudged the silver haired junior's arm, grinning.
"Ha-ha, very funny," Riku said with mock humor.
Suddenly the bell rang, signaling that first period was over.
The class gathered up their things and started leaving; Mrs. Otaku didn't bother to come out of her sound-proof office to dismiss her students.
"Hey, Ver, what class do you have next?" asked Riku as they walked out the door.
Vera took her schedule out of her pocket and glanced at it. "Ack! The loathsome subject of…math," the new student shuddered at the thought of…math.
"Oh, I have that too. C'mon, I can show you to class. Watch out for the teacher though…I swear that woman is the Wicked Witch of the West." Riku grinned as he led the girl through the Labyrinth of Hallways once again.
A/N: wOOt! Waddya think? Took me a while to write…sweatdrop Geez…now I have to write a third chappie…Ack! Oh well. I wanna get to the good parts I have planned. MWAHAHAHAHA! If you review faster, maybe I can write faster…Well, I'm sorry to those of you who are guitar experts if I used the wrong terms or anything. I do own a guitar but have no clue how to play it…so please forgive me if I screw up the guitar playing scenes of this fic. R&R please!