Author's note:

So it's been a bit since I've published this, and I apologize for that. Life has gotten busier than expected, and I haven't had as much time to write as I would want. Ideally, I'd love to be able to put out one chapter per week like I was able to with Fangs for the Memories, but it seems like I always need to get a few chapters into each fanfic before I'm able to fully commit to that.

Without further ado, I hope you enjoy the second chapter!

That night, Thorn had another "fame" dream. In her current groggy state, she couldn't quite remember what it was about, but she certainly remembered the sounds of the fans screaming her name. Reality was almost an inconvenience as Thorn reoriented herself to what her life was actually like. She would much have preferred to just live in the dream, embracing the utopian life she felt she deserved.

She knew that wasn't possible, though, so she tried to just think about how she was going to be introduced to a record producer today.

Thorn gazed sleepily at the wall as she tried to wake herself up, her dreamy state quickly dissipating as she reoriented herself to the drab salmon walls surrounding her in the bedroom. It was always hard for the goth to get up in the morning, as she needed some cereal and some coffee before she felt like a fully-functioning human being.

Thorn caught a glance of the Wicca book that she never got around to reading on her desk, whilst sloppily digging through her t-shirt drawer to throw on something to wear. The plain black t-shirt she ended up choosing reminded her of the band t-shirt that she, Dusk and Luna always talked about making, but never seemed to get around to.

"Morning." Thorn groggily muttered as she saw her two best friends already sitting on the couch eating their morning bowls of cereal.

"Good morning." Luna responded. "Dusk and I were wondering if you wanted to have another writing session this afternoon."

In honesty, writing was the last thing on Thorn's mind. She was still too excited about her dream and exciting new possibility of becoming famous through this connection with a record producer.

"Ummm… I hadn't really thought about it." she finally answered. "I was going to go to the arcade again this morning, but we can do it after that."

"Perfect! That should be just enough time before we meet the record producer guy at 4." Luna stated.

"Just don't stay at the arcade too long." Dusk warned.

"I won't!" Thorn said, slightly defensively. "You really think I'd make us miss out on something like this?"

Dusk and Luna gave each other off-looks, demonstrating they were both likely thinking the same thing. Thorn had no idea what that could be, though.

"Well, we all know you can get lost in your thoughts when you're there and lose track of time." Luna politely phrased.

"Yeah, it's like you go there and fall in a time warp or some shit." Dusk stated a lot more bluntly.

"I promise you, I won't lose track of time. I'll be back here no later than noon." Thorn said, as she poured her bowl of cereal. "That will still give us three hours to write, before we have to get ready to go."

"That should work." Dusk still looked a little cautious, though Thorn didn't see why. Sure, Thorn was aware she could get a tad distracted when she was at the arcade. The arcade was a safe place where the black-haired goth could just turn her brain off and think about her life without having to worry about other things distracting her. In a way, it did feel like it was a "time warp" as Dusk so crudely put it, because going there made Thorn feel like time could just stand still for a moment while she stopped and processed everything.

"Sorry if I sounded pushy or anything." Luna apologized. "I'm just really eager to get these last two songs done. Once we finish those, maybe we can finally get this first album released."

"No, you're fine." Thorn said, sitting down and slowly sipping her morning cup of coffee. The girls sat there for a moment whilst each doing their own things: Luna read a book she was currently into titled The Mystery of Haunted Island, and Thorn paged through her diary re-reading some song lyrics she had written but never used, pondering on their potential usefulness for the two songs that they still had to write. Dusk, on the other hand, simply stared off into space, looking somewhat impatient.

"Is something wrong, Dusk?" Thorn asked politely.

"I thought you were going to the arcade." Dusk stated, a little on edge.

"I am. I'm just sitting down and re-reading some old lyrics over coffee is all." Thorn shrugged, unsure what Dusk's point was.

"If you take much longer to get to the arcade, I know exactly what's going to happen: you'll get lost in your head and then lose track of time, then we'll miss our writing session altogether!" Dusk presumed.

"This shouldn't be stressful, Dusk." Luna interjected. "We should be excited that a music producer wants to look over our work."

"Yeah...I guess you're right." Dusk calmed down. "Sorry. I just feel like we need to make sure everything's perfect if we're ever going to have a chance of impressing some bigwig music exec."

"It's fine. I'll get going now and just take my coffee to-go." Thorn shrugged. She felt bad for getting Dusk unintentionally worked up so much, but at the same time, she felt she deserved some downtime too. She didn't have to always cater to what others wanted her to do.

"Okay, thanks." Dusk smiled a bit awkwardly. It was clear she felt bad about snapping at Thorn, but she did have a tendency to get overly worked up about things. Thorn always assumed it was because her family never really discussed the idea of mental health much. If you were struggling, that was your problem and not something anyone else should have to coddle you for, according to Dusk's parents.

"See you guys at noon. Not a minute later." Thorn playfully joked, as she grabbed the car keys and purse before heading out the door.

The arcade was bustling with people young and old, and the options of all the different video games you could play in the arcade seemed endless. Thorn didn't take much notice of any of her surroundings, however. She had already zoned in on her favorite The Wizard of Oz game, and began thinking about the day ahead. When she met Bridgit's dad, what would she say? If he asked them to perform one of their songs, which one would they do? Perhaps they could sing "Hex Girl," which would bring them some name recognition. Or maybe it would be better to perform "Earth, Wind, Fire and Air," which seemed to be the audience's favorite at the Autumn Festival. The girls were proud of all of their songs, so it was tough to pick one that was most representative of their artistry. Every song they made was important to them in some way. Prioritizing one piece over the other seemed like being asked to choose between food or water.

While Thorn thought this all out, she also focused on attempting to get Dorothy to the Wonderful Wizard's castle while avoiding the Wicked Witch of the West and her flying monkeys, which was the ultimate objective of the game. As the game went on, the levels progressively became harder as more and more obstacles were placed in your way. She loved how simplistic the game was, though, as it allowed her to shut her mind off and just process whatever was going through her head. However, she did seem to be having an extraordinarily hard time getting past the level she was on for some strange reason.

"Excuse me." a soothing feminine voice said from behind the game-playing goth.

The voice caused Thorn to jump a little, as she was so lost in her head that she had completely blocked out everything around her. The girl was quite short and had pink hair, and was wearing a shirt that had "Salem" embroidered across the chest.

"Oh. Hi." Thorn said, a bit startled.

"Hey. I'm Rena." the pink-haired girl stated.

"I'm Thorn." Thorn introduced herself.

"We're actually going to be servicing this machine this afternoon, given some complaints we've gotten about one of the levels malfunctioning. Do you think you'll be done playing it soon?" Rena inquired.

"I was wondering why I couldn't get past level 13!" Thorn exclaimed, as she looked at the time to see how much longer she would be staying. Somehow, it was already 11:36.

"Oh...yeah, I actually need to get going. Thanks for fixing this machine. It's my favorite game here."

"Mine too!" Rena exclaimed. "Have a great day!"

"You too!" Thorn smiled.

In hindsight, as much as Thorn hated to be interrupted, she was almost glad Rena had said something to her as she would have been late otherwise, just as Dusk had feared.

As it was a 15 minute drive home, Thorn booked it to the Soccer Mom Minivan in order to make it back to the apartment for the writer's session.

The drive was thankfully uneventful, as Thorn was quite worried a certain event would occur...getting pulled over, given she was going eight miles over the speed limit to ensure she'd make it back to the apartment on time.

Thorn realized her park job was a tad crooked when she raced into their typical parking spot, but she knew she didn't have time to fix it at the moment. The black-haired goth nearly forgot her purse in the car whilst scrambling for the stairs. There were some days she wished her purse were more organized, and today was shaping up to be one of those days. She couldn't for the life of her find where she set her keys upon reaching the top of the stairs. After a bit of digging through various items - some useful and some she should have thrown away years ago - she retrieved her keys, which had somehow nestled themselves next to a pack of wintergreen gum.

Panting with exhaustion from the physical workout of climbing the stairs, coupled with the emotional workout of worrying herself silly that she'd be late, Thorn entered the apartment. The anxious eco-goth's first thought was to look at the clock on the wall: 11:58am. She'd made it.

"Wow, that's a first." Dusk teased. "You're almost always running on Thorn time."

"Shut up." Thorn playfully replied back, even though she knew Dusk's statement was objectively true.

"So, let's get started on this writing session then!" Luna disrupted her two friends' playful banter.

"Are we just picking up where we left off with that one song yesterday?" Thorn inquired.

"Yeah, I don't know where else we'd start. We've got two songs left to finish for the album, and this is one of them." Dusk gave her logic.

"Speaking of that, I was thinking we should make a change to the rhythm of 'Trap of Love.'" Luna recommended. "I think the melody after the post-chorus needs to be a little more grungy."

"Oh for god's sake!" Dusk harrumphed. "If we go around changing every fucking thing on the album, we're never going to get it out!"

"We want it to be as perfect as it can be, though. No reason to rush if we think part of it's not ready." Luna pointed out.

"That's the problem, though. It's never going to be perfect. One of us is always going to find something that could be changed or made slightly better." Dusk sighed. "At some point, we just have to say 'good enough' and put it out in the world. We've been working on this album for two years now, and we can't spend our entire careers working on one album."

"This is our debut album, though. It needs to be extra special if we want it to resonate with people enough to put it out into the world." Luna argued. "If that means it takes another two years to put it out, then so be it."

"There's a line between making something special and nitpicking over every damn aspect." Dusk shot back.

"If I may jump into this argument, I have an idea that might resonate with you both." Thorn impatiently stated. It was common for their writing sessions to devolve into arguments about how to handle the album's release lately, which the black-haired goth found unfortunate.

"Oh, and what's that? Scrap the whole album and start over?" Dusk growled.

"Geez, calm down, Dusk." Luna rolled her eyes.

"What songs on the album have we not changed at all?" Thorn asked.

"We haven't really touched Hex Girl, Who Do Voodoo?, Petrified Bride, The Witch's Ghost, and Earth, Wind, Fire and Air." Luna pointed out.

"Or Trap of Love...well, until you suggested it just now." Dusk gave Luna a cross look, to which she blushed.

"Exactly. All our changes have been to the other six songs on the album." Thorn observed. "We know we like the sound of the first six songs. So, why don't we try to make the rest of the songs more like those?"

"That's a good idea. I guess the other six songs have sounded a bit different than our original ones." Luna realized.

"You know, you have a point." Dusk agreed. "We've been so wrapped up in making the music that we thought would resonate with other people that we forgot to also stay true to our classic sound."

"Wait...so we're scrapping four more songs then?" Luna asked for clarification.

"I think we need to." Thorn nodded. "We can't lose sight of our own artistic voice just to please other people. We have to make music that's unashamedly us. That's the only way we're going to get this album done."

"You're right." Dusk agreed, much to the other two girls' surprise. "Let's scrap the other four songs, and make some badass music that we're going to love so much that we won't need changes."

"Guess we better get started writing then." Thorn smiled in response.

"The crow's wing falls as my voice calls." Thorn sang aloud. "What do you think of that line?"

"I really like it." Luna nodded.

"Yeah, it's badass." Dusk agreed.

A quick look at the clock showed Thorn it was already 3:30.

"I think we better stop here for today." Thorn pointed to the clock, its second hand continuing to take a second away from the girls' precious remaining half hour every time it moved.

"3:30?" Dusk exclaimed as Thorn's comment caused her to glance at the clock. "Man, I'm glad I did my makeup before this."

"Me too." Luna breathed a sigh of relief.

Both of their relieved comments made Thorn more nervous, because she had not gotten ready at all for the day yet.

"I need a few minutes to fix my makeup." Thorn blurted, before racing in the bathroom.

"Oh no." Dusk facepalmed. "We're gonna be here forever!"

Thorn did her best to quickly put on some foundation and eyeliner, while doing a quick brushing of her hair at the same time.

After a very cursory check of herself in the mirror to make sure she looked good (or at least, good enough) for the record producer meeting, Thorn raced out to the living room. In hindsight, the perky goth wished she had better thought about the time she would need to fit everything in before they had only a few minutes remaining until they had to leave. Regardless, there was nothing she could do about it now.

"I'm ready. Finally." Thorn said, adding the last word because she felt bad for delaying her two friends.

"Let's get our instruments and go, then." Dusk instructed. "We don't have a moment to waste."

Thankfully, Thorn was able to sit in the front seat of the Soccer Mom van, albeit, she wasn't the one driving. That was Thorn's favorite spot to sit in the vehicle, as she didn't have to have the responsibility of driving, but also didn't have to be crammed against the wall from all their instruments. Unfortunately for Dusk, she was the one who got stuck with the crap seating arrangement this time, while Luna drove.

Thorn's head was spinning with all sorts of thoughts on the way to meet Bridgit's father. Up until this point, the girls were essentially just three teens who made music in their apartment and sometimes performed that music for others. They'd never had to worry about the ins and outs of the music industry, or professional etiquette, as artists before. What should they say? What shouldn't they say? Could they finagle a record deal out of this? What song would they play?

Wait a moment.

The thought that had just popped into her busy mind made her realize: the girls hadn't yet picked a song they were going to play.

"I just had a thought: we never picked the song we're going to perform for this guy." Thorn gasped.

"Shit." Dusk swore. "We got so caught up in writing the new song that we totally forgot the most obviously important thing!"

"It's fine." Luna reassured an anxious Dusk. "I think the most logical song is 'Earth, Wind, Fire and Air.' It shows our love of the environment and represents what we stand for as an eco-goth band."

"I don't agree. 'Hex Girl' far better represents who we are as a band. It's our style of music perfected down to a tee." Thorn argued. "Plus, it's the first song we ever wrote, and it gave us our band name."

"Dusk, you're the tiebreaker here. What should we play?" Luna asked, as she made a right turn.

"Oh, I don't fucking know…" Dusk muttered, before quickly coming up with an answer. It seemed anger was her automatic response to stress. "I've gotta go with 'Hex Girl'. Thorn's right that it's our first song, and it best represents who we are."

"Damn." Luna playfully cussed. "We're almost there, guys."

Thorn could see the name of the record studio just up ahead, and it was beautiful. Although there were no flashing neon signs or bright lights around the studio, simply the possibilities that the studio represented for the three of them made it more breathtaking than any picturesque scene ever could have been.

"I guess we just park on the street here? It says 'permit required' on that lot, and Bridgit didn't give us a permit." Luna mentioned.

Just as the last syllable left Luna's lips, a loud bang could be heard.

"What the hell was that?" Dusk looked both frightened and irked at the same time. Thorn had never thought of the possibility of the combination of these two emotions before, but nonetheless Dusk portrayed it well.

Luna let the vehicle come to a full stop, as she limped it to the side of the road and got out to check what was wrong. Upon popping the hood and looking inside, she quickly returned with a somber look on her face.

"Well, I guess I answered my own question. We're definitely parking on the street." Luna sighed.

"Why's that?" Thorn inquired.

"The radiator overheated. I guess I can't say I'm surprised, but it sucks that it finally happened." Luna stated in a disappointed tone.

"Ah fuck. How in the hell are we going to pay for this?" Dusk snapped.

"No time to worry about that now. We've got to get in the studio before we're late." Thorn hurried.

"Look on the bright side, Dusk. At least we made it to the studio before it broke down." Luna reminded.

"Yeah, I guess you're right." Dusk solemnly nodded.

"Hey girls!" The Hex Girls heard a familiar voice call from nearby. As soon as they saw the pink hair, they recognized it was Bridgit. "So, how are you three? Are you excited?"

"Well, we would have been." Thorn hinted.

"Would have been?" Bridgit repeated. "Is everything okay?"

"Our radiator broke down." Dusk pointed to the Soccer Mom Van, which currently had a little smoke coming from the hood.

"Oh no!" Bridgit exclaimed, seeming genuinely concerned. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Not unless you want to give us a ride home. I think we're going to have to be towed." Thorn answered.

"Oh, for sure I can give you a ride home!" Bridgit offered.

"That's so kind of you!" Thorn smiled.

"That would be amazing. It'd be a pain in the ass to have to take a taxi home. There are hardly any around here, unless you want to pay extra to have one called over from Salem." Dusk informed.

"No problem. I hope you're able to have it fixed by Friday for your next performance!" Bridgit mentioned.

"Oh, wow. You must follow our schedule pretty closely." Thorn laughed. "Even I forgot for a moment that we have a performance this Friday at that coffee shop."

"I mean, Nia, Sam and I are your biggest fans. We always want to make it to your shows if we can!" Bridgit chirped.

That made Thorn wonder if the three of them had been to previous shows without them noticing. Thorn didn't really ever memorize anyone's faces that came to their shows, so it was certainly a possibility.

"Anyway, my dad sent me out here to come get you guys once you showed up. He's actually waiting for you now!" Bridgit shared.

"Well, let's not keep him waiting then." Dusk's walking speed immediately increased so as not to disappoint him.

Upon entering the building, Thorn didn't see exactly what she expected. She wasn't really sure what she was expecting, but there were a lot more recording rooms and offices than she'd thought there would be. She supposed she had thought this would be a very small studio given everything was quite modest in Oakhaven, but this was certainly a decent-sized establishment.

Thorn glanced up at the walls and saw all sorts of music posters. She knew some of the posters were of famous musicians that certainly didn't have any affiliation to this studio, such as Bob Dylan, The Cure, and Bon Jovi, though others were names Thorn didn't recognize, including the Zack Attack, Jonathan Parson, and Mackenzie Schnitzberg.

"Alright, this is my dad's office." Bridgit extended her arm to knock on the door to a small office with the number '109' on it.

"Come on in!" a man's voice exclaimed.

Dusk opened the doorknob, to reveal a somewhat upscale looking office. The black-haired goth couldn't help but let out a smile when she saw a Siouxsie and the Banshees poster hanging on his wall. Thorn recognized some of the other posters as goth musicians that she herself idolized: Robert Smith from The Cure, Peter Murphy of Bauhaus, and Andrew Eldritch of Joy Division. She hadn't even known the man for a minute and already she liked him. He appeared to be a slimmer man who was very bold in his dress choices. He was currently wearing bright pink pants, a purple jacket and a green shirt. Rose-colored glasses sat below his eyes.

"Hi! It's so nice to meet you!" Thorn smiled, trying to seem as friendly and cheerful as possible. "I'm Thorn."

"Hey, my name's Dusk." Dusk shook the man's hand.

"Hi. I'm Luna." Luna meekly stated. It was clear even when a huge opportunity was in front of her, she couldn't get past her feelings of shyness.

"It's great to meet you girls too. My name is Gus Boggs and I'm the general manager here at Decade Records." the man introduced himself with a strong British accent. He had a somewhat higher-pitched voice for a male. "My daughter Bridgit told me all about your band, and you sound fabulous! Given you brought your instruments, I'd love a chance to hear you play. If you're really as good as my daughter says, maybe we can work out some sort of promotional deal."

Thorn was super nervous. Despite that she typically performed in front of at least 10-20 people at every show - hundreds in the case of the Autumn Fest - performing in front of this one person felt more nerve-wracking than all of the people who had ever come to their concerts combined. If they ever wanted to have a chance to make it big, this had to be perfect.

"We'd love to play a song for you, sir." Thorn politely answered, as she took her instrument out of her case and began to set it up.

"I'm ready whenever you are." Gus smiled.

"Okay." Thorn took a deep inhale and looked back at her other two band members. Both of them gave a cautious nod. "We call this song 'Hex Girl'."

"We're gonna put a spell on all of you!" all the Hex Girls shouted in tandem at the end of their song.

"Wow." Gus said, at first a bit subdued. His tone increasingly grew more excited as he continued to speak. "Wow! WOW! You girls are incredible!"

Thorn was so shocked at first she didn't know what to say. She had braced herself for the worst, so much so that she temporarily forgot how to interpret the best.

"Th-thank you, sir!" Luna finally responded.

"Are you sure you girls haven't signed a record deal yet?" Gus checked.

"Not as far as we know." Thorn awkwardly chuckled, not knowing where Gus was going with this train of thought.

"Well, you have now." Gus said. "If you want, of course. I'd like to sign you girls on here with us at Decade Records, as well as become your manager."

"Really?" Dusk asked. "I mean...of course!"

"Yes, really." Gus chuckled. "You girls have a unique style of music that I haven't heard in a long time. I think you could really stand out on the alternative charts."

"Charts?" Dusk's jaw almost dropped.

Sure, the girls had thought about fame and their music charting before, but the thought of it seemed so unattainable to them that hearing that their music might become popular and chart seemed like a shock for a moment. It was one thing for people to be friendly with them and listen to their music at shows, but to have so many people liking their music that it became among the most popular music in the country? This was groundbreaking.

"Yes, charts." Gus's chuckle turned more into a hearty laugh. "I know it may be hard to believe as a small town, currently unpopular band, but your music is really good! I think people are going to love this. Now, have we thought about an album at all?"

"Yeah!" all three girls exclaimed at once, with Dusk saying the slight variation of "yes."

"We've got six songs recorded and ready to go already. In fact, we were just working on the seventh today!" Thorn shared, almost bragging with excitement.

"Stupendous!" Gus smiled. "It's so refreshing to hear you girls are serious about your music and have already been planning for the direction I'm going to lead you in. Now, I'm not saying it's going to be quick, but I think we could plan for an amazing release strategy that will get you popular around the world!"

"The world?" Luna whispered to Thorn in excitement. For as much as they'd dreamt about fame before, the thought that it was far more possible than they previously believed was shocking to them.

"Yes, the world!" Gus chuckled. "Seems like we'll need to work on more than just the album...we've got to work on your self-esteem! You girls are really good, whether you believe it or not."

"Thank you, sir." Thorn smiled politely. She wished her brain would think of something else to say besides that, but she was just so stunned that he actually loved their music. She expected him to hate it or moderately like it, but certainly not love it.

"Come with me, girls. If you're open to it, I'd like to sign you on with us today." Gus offered.

"We'd love that!" Dusk blurted.

The girls followed Gus down a long, narrow hallway. There were posters of various musicians all down the hallway just like there were when the girls came in, but Thorn was so in her head processing through the fact that this was actually real that she didn't look to see the names.

"I can't believe we're getting signed!" Thorn said semi-quietly to Luna and Dusk as Gus led them into a room. The room appeared to be a printing room, as a large printer rested on a wooden desk next to some chairs.

"Me either!" Luna whispered back.

"Alright girls, the contract's all ready." Gus said, as the printer made a few noises before printing out numerous sheets of paper with the word "contract" written in big bold letters across the top.

"This has to be the most unique place someone's ever signed a record deal." Dusk commented. "Right on top of a printer."

"Actually, I signed a band in a Taco Bell once. Now that was unique!" Gus informed. "They were a great band with a very personal, homemade style of music."

"Were?" Dusk noticed Gus's odd word choice.

"Yes, it's quite a shame they broke up." Gus shook his head.

"That would never happen to us." Thorn reassured him. "Dusk and I have been friends since childhood, and we've known Luna for years."

"So were they." Gus somberly said, which made Thorn's heart sink a little. "But, you girls seem like quite a tight-knit group. For them, one of them got in a disagreement with the other two and quit, and then it was all over. All I would recommend is to always value your close friendship over the success of the band. Never let the band or the success come before the ones you care about most. If you do that, you'll be fine."

"Okay, good." Thorn nodded, feeling much better now. "None of us would ever do that."

"Do you want a chance to read over this whole thing, Thorn?" Dusk asked. "I just skimmed it."

"Of course I do!" Thorn took the contract from Dusk. "These are the terms we'll have to abide by for possibly our entire careers. I can take a few minutes to read over it."

Thorn took 20 minutes to read the contract, diligently reading over every line to make sure each term was agreeable to her.

"This looks good to me." she finally said. "You want to look at it, Luna?"

"Absolutely." Luna picked up the contract as Thorn handed it to her. "Sorry we're taking so long."

"I'd expect nothing less. You girls are essentially making the biggest move thus far in your careers, so I want you to take as much time as you need." Gus affirmed.

"Okay, everything looks good to me." Luna inquired after a few minutes of silence. "What's the line about making our first two albums under you, though?"

"Ah, yes. You're just agreeing that you won't sign a contract with another record company until after you've made two albums with us. I can't see why you'd ever need to move to another record company though, as Decade Records is the best of the best!" Gus bragged.

"I don't have a problem with that." Thorn shrugged.

"Yeah, that's fine by me." Dusk replied.

"Me too." Luna meekly added.

"Are we ready to sign, then?" Thorn gasped. She couldn't believe the moment she'd waited for since they started the band was finally here.

"Hell yeah we are! Where's a pen?" Dusk inquired.

"Right here." Gus picked up a purple pen from the desk next to the printer and handed it to the blonde.

Dusk quickly scribbled a signature before handing it to Thorn. Thorn methodically wrote her signature in fancy, pretty-looking letters, before handing it to Luna. Luna was somewhere in between the speed of her two friends when signing the contract: not as sloppily as Dusk, but also not as thoughtful as Thorn.

"Guys. We just signed our first contract." Thorn stated, just to let the thought resonate a little.

"I can't believe we just made the first step in our careers." Luna gasped.

"Well, believe it, girls, because you just made the best decision you've ever made. After only performing around Oakhaven for so long, now your music is going to be heard by the entire country, possibly the entire world." Gus informed.

"Holy shit." Dusk said in awe, before realizing she was in a formal setting. "Sorry...I mean, that's freaking incredible."

"No need to apologize, girls. Say whatever you feel, write whatever you feel, and dream about whatever you feel." Gus said, as he motioned for the girls to come back to his office. "You girls have a very unique style of music, and I'd hate to stifle it by requiring you to abide by mere social formalities."

As Thorn, Dusk and Luna were just about to go back into Gus's office with him, they noticed a man walking towards them from the other direction. The man's eyes seem to fixate on Thorn's guitar.

"Hahaha! You girls still use instruments?" the man pointed and laughed.

"Yeah, what the hell else would we use?" Dusk snapped.

"How utterly archaic! Well, let me bring you girls into the current century! I can get all of the sounds from any instrument with a computer, and it sounds more amazing than any old-school instrument does!" the man acted as if he were 'educating' the three, also saying 'instrument' in a mocking way as if it were a dirty word.

Without even asking, the man barged into Gus's office and began using the computer on his desk.

"You don't mind if I use this, do you Gus?" the man asked in a condescending way.

"Well, you're already using it, Jeff." Gus rolled his eyes.

"Just take a listen to this!" Jeff smirked, as he rapidly pressed several buttons on the computer. The computer began to make a bunch of electronic sounding noises that vaguely sounded like a dancey beat, with heavy bass coming from the speakers.

"That was literally the stupidest thing I've ever heard." Dusk scoffed. "All you did was make a bunch of random electronic sound effects."

"Yeah, but I made them all happen at the same time!" Jeff bragged.

"Jeff, do you mind? I'm quite busy right now trying to finish up signing these girls." Gus's tone grew increasingly impatient.

"Oh, I'm quite sorry." Jeff insincerely said. "I'll leave you to your instruments."

"I'm sorry about Jeff." Gus apologized, before Jeff had even fully shut the door. "He's one of our most popular musicians, but he's a - excuse my French - narcissistic asshole."

"It's fine." Thorn assured.

"Yeah, it's not your fault that asswipe is a jackass." Dusk swore.

"Asswipe is a jackass. Very interesting phrase." Gus muttered to himself, before raising his voice to normal volume. "Anyway, if it works for all of your schedules, I would love to meet with you again next week to start discussing your album. How does Thursday at 10:00am work?"

"Works fine for us." Thorn agreed, as the other two girls nodded in confirmation.

"Excellent! I will see you in my office next Thursday at 10, then. Not a minute later!" Gus instructed.

"Sounds wonderful." Luna smiled.

"Thank you so much for everything!" Thorn added, as she shook Gus's hand.

"Yeah, we're looking forward to working with you." Dusk said, as she too shook Gus's hand.

"I'm looking forward to working with you ladies, too." Gus replied. "Drive safe."

"Ah shit, we forgot about our car breaking down! Do you know where your daughter's at?" Dusk inquired.

"I'm not sure. She should be around." Gus thought for a moment before giving his response.

Footsteps could be heard in the hall, getting closer and closer with every second. A familiar face peaked around the doorframe of the office.

"All done with these girls, Dad?" Bridgit inquired.

"Yes! It seems their car broke down, though, so could you give them a ride home?" Gus asked.

"Yeah, in fact, I already offered!" Bridgit informed.

"Magnificent!" Gus exclaimed. "I'll see you tomorrow morning at work. And I'll see you girls next Thursday!"

"Bye!" Dusk waved.

"Thanks again!" Thorn chimed in.

"Well, it sounds like it went well!" Bridgit inferred, once they were far enough out of earshot of her father.

"It went as amazing as it possibly could have." Thorn shared. "We got signed, and he's going to help us put out our first album!"

"Oh my gosh, that's incredible!" Bridgit exclaimed. "Congrats! You girls must be so excited!"

"Yeah, I never thought we'd be lucky enough to get signed on the first time meeting him." Dusk stated.

"Well, it must have had a little something to do with the necklace I gave you!" Bridgit looked at Dusk's neck, which still had the see-through crystal jewelry around her neck.

Dusk looked at her necklace too, looking like she'd forgotten she was wearing it. "Oh yeah. I guess this thing is kinda lucky. That's cool!"

"I'm so freaking proud to be a fan of you guys. What other band can say they got signed on their first meeting with a record company?" Bridgit smiled.

"Well, I'm sure lots of other bands have, but thanks anyway." Thorn lightly giggled.

"You work for your dad?" Dusk changed the subject for a moment, as the girls got into Bridgit's car. She had quite a nice vehicle: a red, shiny convertible that currently had its top down. Thorn assumed Bridgit's family was likely rich, being in the record business and all.

"Mm-hmm!" Bridgit chirped. "I'm his office assistant. I help him out with various paperwork and different projects. It pays the bills."

"Speaking of paying bills, we're going to need to find a way to pay our car repair bill once we call to get it towed." Luna said to Thorn and Dusk.

"We're never going to be able to afford this." Thorn sighed.

"Unless…" Luna started. She didn't even have to finish her sentence for the other two to know what she was saying.

"Oh God, Luna, no. Not right when we just got signed. We need more time for music than ever now." Thorn argued. "Right, Dusk?"

"I think I'm with Luna on this one. It'll only be for a little while, until we get famous. I'm sure your dad would be open to it, and Luna's probably would too." Dusk suggested. "I could find something somewhere else."

"I guess you're right." Thorn sighed. "I don't want to, though."

"Find what?" Bridgit asked. "What are you girls talking about?"

"Well Bridgit, if we're ever going to afford our car repair, I think we're going to need to get second jobs." Thorn somberly revealed.

Author's note:

Apologies again there was a bit of delay on getting this chapter out, but I hope it was worth the wait!

Toward the beginning of the chapter, Dusk makes a comment about the closest taxi around being in Salem. To elaborate a bit on where this story takes place, while there aren't any real towns named Oakhaven anywhere in the state of Massachusetts, there is a real-life campground just outside of Wales, MA named Oakhaven that is an hour and 35 minutes away from Salem, MA by car. For the purposes of this story, Oakhaven is a minute away from the town of Wales, where the real-life campground is located.

I followed the continuity of "In Fear of the Phantom" of Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated by having Gus Boggs as the girls' manager. He's never referenced in official Scooby-Doo media (at least at the time of writing this) outside of that episode, but he's the only manager that we ever see the girls having, so I thought it would be best to just follow along with the canon. Likewise, Decade Records is the record company in The Scooby-Doo Show episode "The Diabolical Disc Demon," which I've utilized here as well.

The bit about Jeff and his electronic music is a bit of a social commentary on how music is becoming increasingly digitized. I'm not against the digitization of music, though I do think there's something special about what instruments bring to music. Personally, I do think it gets a little ridiculous when it becomes so electronic that there's no other element to the song other than random digitized sounds (as sadly "funky computer dance music" featuring all electronic sounds with no lyrics is a thing). That's sort of what Jeff's "Yeah, but I made them all happen at the same time!" is intended to be a satire of.

There's also a bit of a cross-fanfic reference to another reference to another fanfic I've written, Fangs of the Memories. If you don't care about Fangs or have never read it, you can skip this paragraph as it is just explaining a scene in this chapter that essentially expands upon the ending of that fanfic. In Fangs, I mentioned in one of my author's notes that three characters on Sybella's yearbook team (Savana, Sami and Sam) were inspired by the names of the members in a real-life band named Avenue Beat. Gus's comment that he once signed a band in a Taco Bell is a reference to how the band members signed their label contract at a Taco Bell in real-life. In one of the last scenes of Fangs for the Memories, it's hinted that the characters inspired by the band members are signed to a label when a man approaches them at the Grimwood's graduation and asks them to talk (and Savana suggests going to Taco Bell, which is a reference to how the real-life band was signed). This scene is intended to establish that this man who approached them in Fangs is Gus Boggs. In addition, the comment about the band "breaking up" is sadly a reference to something that just happened on the day of writing this in real life. One of the members (Sami) quit the band due to being overwhelmed with fame, and the entire band fell apart as a result. They just released their first (and last) album telling the journey of their band, featuring the incomplete music they were able to make when they were still a band. It ended up working well here to create that scene where Gus talks about the band breaking up, causing The Hex Girls to worry that this will happen to them as well. Ironically, without knowing this would happen, I had also very loosely been inspired by that band's backstory when I was explaining in the first chapter how Luna met the other two at band camp, which worked out quite well in writing the scene where Thorn says that would never happen to them because they'd known each other for a while, to which Gus replies that so did this other band. Anyway, if you've read this whole paragraph down this far, thank you and I hope I didn't bore you with this explanation, as I realize it got very complicated and had multiple layers of references haha. Since Savana, Sami and Sam's characters in Fangs had such big roles (they appeared in every chapter with the exception of one from chapter 30 on), I wanted to make this reference (even though I hadn't planned to) as sort of a final tribute given the band is ending. For that reason, this chapter is being published on the same date as their final album is released (October 15, 2021).

The other references in this chapter include the book Dusk is reading, The Mystery of Haunted Island, is a reference to the episode of the same title from The New Scooby-Doo Movies. Also, in case anyone didn't get the reference, Bauhaus, The Cure and Joy Division are some of the most famous real-life goth bands in the subculture.

Hope you enjoyed the chapter, and I'll try to have the next one out as quickly as I can. Or if you're reading this later and it's already out, then what are you waiting for? Go on to the next chapter to see what happens already haha!