"Man...time flies doesn't it?"

Zane sighed deeply as he packed all of his stuff together, as Dale did the same. Time shocking flew through the band camp time, and today was the last day of the away band camp. The timing couldn't of came any better, as Zane has had some great encounters the last few days.

The first started when he met two new people in the percussion section. Both in the front ensemble.

Zane sighed deeply as he laid his drums down on the grass, lying on the ground as the rest of the drumline went off doing stupid things as they usually did. He was exhausted, probably bruised, and of course, burnt from the sun. He felt extremely light headed, and way to hot. They were doing marching drills as a percussion section, the pit playing as the battery played and marched their show.

"Hey man, you alright?" He looked up to see a guy with glasses that became black due to the sunlight, Zane had no idea what they were called. His hair was shaved a bit, probably for the heat of the course of band camp.

"Yea, I'm just exhausted...who are you again?" Zane asked, while the stranger scratched the back of his head.

"My name is Smitty, I play all the accessories in the pit." He said, and Zane nodded.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Zane."

Smitty and Zane had a good conversation for awhile. Turns out, Smitty was a freshmen as well. He originally played trumpet and baritone, but he couldn't resist the thought of playing percussion, dreaming of being on the bass line. However, he did not cut for auditions, and went to pit. He was planning on playing timpani, but there was no timpani in the CODES show, so he was put on all the accessories.

As they continued their conversation, a voice rang out.

"Smitty, what the hell are you doing?"

They both turned to see another boy, with long brown hair, sort of wavy as he flipped it. In his hands were four mallets, in the appropriate Steven's grip.

"Just talking to my new friend Zane, what's your problem Stevie?"

Stevie was the section leader of the pit, and a very talented mallet player. He was one of the few remaining vets of the percussion section, and he helped build the pit to what it is. Of course, he became very self-centered, and held a very high opinion of himself.

"I don't see why you are, you need to be looking over your parts right now. You know, the stuff you can't play?"

Stevie walked off, towards the marimba and began to practice the show music. Smitty sighed as he looked at Zane.

"Sorry bro, but I gotta go, talk to you later."

As soon as Smitty walked off, Zane heard Tyler yelling for his name. He scrambled up and got his drums, running to where the rest of the line was.

Zane sighed deeply as he walked out of the dorms with Dale, who was looking around. "I'm sure gonna miss this place." Dale said, as he scratched the back of his head.

Zane laughed a bit to himself, hoping he was kidding. The last week has been complete hell. He has never been so pushed in his life. He had sun burn on the back of his knees, his shoulders from taking his shirt off during runthroughs with the drumline. (L bluntly refused to have anyone take their shirts off with the band.)

"Why's that? This is so hard...harder than anything I have ever done." Zane said, as they began to walk to the buses with their stuff.

"Agreed, but it's so worth it in the end, hopefully you'll be saying that your senior year." Dale said, as they began to get closer to the buses. However, Dale stopped, and grabbed Zane, turning him towards him.

"Promise me something."

Zane just blinked.

"You will come back. This section has died out in the last couple of years. I don't want this section to suck. I can't let this section die. I need you to promise me to strive for greatness. Always."

Zane couldn't believe what he was hearing. Dale never really talked like that, to anyone, but the look in his eyes showed that he really meant it. Zane nodded.

"I will."

Dale smiled, a genuine one. Not any of the mischievous smiles he usually made.

"Good."

"Hey Zane, Zane wake up." Zane woke up on the bus, noticing everyone was already off. Beside him was Alex, who just pointed behind him.

"Everyone is already inside the school. How the hell do you fall asleep on the bus?"

Zane yawned, shrugging. He really didn't care how he did, but how beautiful was the nap he took. He stood up, stretching as he walked off the bus with Alex. He noticed that there were many cars around as he walked off the bus.

"Wait, why are there alot of cars here dude?" Zane asked, curious about the event.

"Meet the team. This is where the football team, dance team, cheerleaders, and we are introduced. It's boring, but we get to perform our show for the first time infront of a audience! Big one too...though it's the Friday night crowd. They really don't matter."

Zane nodded as they walked inside the band room, everybody sitting around eating. L noticed him, and started to laugh loudly, as everyone looked his way.

"I thought you were in the bus!"

Everyone else started to laugh at Zane's expense. He blushed a bit, moving towards the drumline, who was laughing the hardest. He sat down, and the laughter died, except for the drumline.

"You're a dumbass!" David yelled as everyone laughed. Zane just muttered a 'shut up' to everyone, and the laughter died down.

They began to talk about random things, as Zane just sat there, listening in.

"So...who do you think is the big competitors for this year?" David asked Dale, who shrugged.

"I don't know. Valley and Knight, for sure..."

"Fuck Knight High, damn fuckers think they are so good for beating us two years ago.." David said, as Zane blinked in confusion.

"Hey guys."

They looked over to see Tyler, who was smiling huge. "You guys better play well tonight...got alot of people coming to see you guys. Including people from Highlands, General, Dots, and of course Knight."

"Damn it did you invite them?"

"Yep, exactly why I say we warm up soon, hurry up in and eat. Oh, and wear this."

He threw a shirt at Dale, who looked at it, having a huge grin on his face. He then turned it to show everyone. Infront of it was a tenor drummer, who was playing hardcore, and on top read:

Dropping mad beats since 2001

He turned it around to show a pretty cool design, the top with two red wings, with the words: "Redskin High Drumline Tour!" And the list of names.

"Kick ass."

Tyler then handed everyone shirts, and Zane put his one on, feeling overwhelmed with pride as he did. He couldn't believe he was finally apart of a team. No, not a team.

A family.

Zane sighed deeply as he put his drums on the crappy Ludwig stand, as the drumline was ready to warm up. The basses put theres on old Dynasty stands, while the snares had their harnesses on. Tyler was waiting, taking a drink of his coffee. After they were done, they got their sticks on out and got set.

"Legatos."

Richie began the tap off, and the exercise begun.

Suddenly, a couple of people of appeared, wearing Dyansty t-shirts showed up, watching the drumline carefully. Zane had no idea what was going on, as more people began to show up, wearing t-shirts representing other schools. Some older people came up, stood beside Tyler and began to talk. They began to talk casually, laughing a bit.

Tyler held up his hand, and they stopped.

Zane could tell they looked unimpressed. Then again, it was a simple Eights exercise, nothing to really get excited over.

"Double Beat, SCV."

Now that was a challenge. Of course, it was a little watered down, since they were still a high school line. The whole group's eyes averted to Zane. It seemed they knew that Zane was the newbie.

Dale started to click his sticks together, and then did the tap off. They began to play the piece.

As they played through, Zane started to groove with it, and the rest of the drumline noticed, starting to do the same. Zane hit a rim on the scrapes once or twice, but overall, the performance was alright and pretty clean. During the random rock out part. Dale took it, playing random rhythms as he got into it. He grinned crazy as he played. After the final note, he turned serious again. Richie did a random thing, and the rest of them hit there drums.

The group clapped, and one of them said something to Tyler. Tyler nodded.

"Alright, opener guys."

They got set, and Richie got the tempo. He looked around to make sure everyone was set, then tapped the drum four times. The basses and tenors started to click, then Richie came in. The rest of the snares joined.

They began to play the opener with intensity, trying to impress the crowd. The part came up for the solos, and the snares played their solos pretty decently, having some dirt. Then the tenor solo came, and Zane played with fire. He hit a rim, but he noticed a nod from some of them.

Towards the part where they were suppose to dut, Tyler shook his head to everyone else, and pointed at Zane. They all knew what it meant, and nodded. Zane did as well. Even though he thought his playing was mediocre, he atleast wanted to show he was a bad ass.

The moment came, and Zane took a deep breath.

"Dut dut-"

Oh how much bad luck did he have?

"dUt DuT."

His voice cracked awfully, making the group of people laugh hard, as did Tyler. The rest of the line gritted their teeth to hold their composure, since they have never heard anything like that before. It sounded like a dying cat being tortured to death with a hatchet. Zane kept playing though, his face red with embarrassment.

The group of people started to leave, probably heading to the stands. When they were gone, Storm was the first one to break set, falling to the ground crying. He was laughing so hard his face was turning purple, the rest of the line joining him. Zane, however, was looking down, red in shame. He couldn't believe he just did that, infront of some important people.

"Zane." He looked up to Tyler, who was infront of his drums. Tyler had a smile on his face, but unlike the rest of them, who were still rolling on the ground laughing, it was meaningful. As though he understood Zane's feelings.

"Back when I marched with the Blue Devils, I had to dut extremely loud, infront of the whole corp. Well, one day, I dut so loud my voice cracked, infront of 200 other people, who heard me. I understand how you feel, so don't worry about it. It happens. Just puberty man. Means you're becoming a man. Like Catie there."

Catie stopped laughing. "WHAT?"

Then everyone's attention went from Zane's blunder to Catie's gender. They made fun of her as she started to get red with anger, but even Zane knew she took it and laughed about it later on. He smiled, he loved these guys already.

"Battery." They all stopped and looked at L, who was already looking mad. "Get your crap on, we are about to hit the field in our first show of the season. No time to be a bunch of sexists."

"Ok Mr. Lavine sir!" Tyler said, as he saluted Lavin, whom Zane never knew what his real last name was. Lavine shook his head, walked back into the band room

Tyler laughed as the rest of the drumline got ready. He began to talk about some stuff, but Zane's mind was elsewhere. This was the first show of the year, his first show ever with the Redskin marching band. He was so pumped, yet, so nervous. More nervous than anything.

Yet, Zane was ready. He was ready to show people what he was made of. He was ready to impress those guys in the stands, to get their attention.

Hey, the Redskin drumline is back!

I apologize for the long awaited update of This Is Us, but life has been quite complicated at times. I skipped the rest of band camp to get ready for the season chapters, since it will be alot easier to write since I already have a bunch of ideas. Staying in band camp was a major writer's block for me. The story will mainly comprise of four different type of chapters:

Football games

Competitions

Concert Band/Sectionals days

And the occasional in between, what they do in their off time from band.

The story will span over four years, so I hope you guys will stick with this story, and hey, maybe get more people to read it!

Thank you for your patience, the next chapter will be up very soon!

Q.P.