trans_9 | You call that music? [open]

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You call that music? [open]

Slobo walked into the sensoriums, and the room became a true blank slate, a white empty void. He wasn't sure what he wanted. He just was angry. His general nightmares had been unchanged, though he was remembering them with more frequency now. The thought of his own failure and how easily he had been taken down by Darkseid, the thoughts of Dream-Lobo mocking him...

Right now, he just needed to vent. He focused for a moment, and a set of awkward looking drums made out of oil barrels and saw-blade cymbals appeared. He sat down, and furiously began a solo to a song that didn't exist.

Sometimes, you just need to hit things. And the noise was nice. He continued his beat, eyes closed, trying to replicate Neil Pert as best as he could, slowly getting into the rythm to "Roll the Bones". The beat covered the room, and with his eyes closed, it would be nearly impossible for him to notice someone walking in.

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The noise was enough to draw attention, Greta had been drifting around the ship since her arrival and had found this place tended to attract lots of people. With luck she might run into Kon or Cissie or Cassie or... well anyone who knew her.
It was funny how alone she could feel on a ship filled with people. Not that she was entirely unused to feeling that way but this somehow felt more...hollow. A ship, living ship, that had captured them all for some greater purpose, as if she felt she was worthy of that.
As mist she seeped into the closed room, unwilling yet to disturb the musician. And as mist she crept along, settling low to the floor to get a good look at the manic drummer. Odd that mist could illicit a tiny light little gasp, but hey..on the meat ship stranger things have happened.

Slobo stopped and silenced his cymbals, sniffing the air and listening. After a moment, he sighed heavily, looking crestfallen as he stared at his set.

"Just the sensoriums messin' with my head..." He said quietly. "Secret ain't here and ain't gonna be. Those dreams must be seriously throwin' me off..."

Another yipped sort of noise from the mist as the name was uttered. In the next breath that misty shape was resolving itself into the semi solid form of one Greta Hayes...Secret.

"I am here! Cissie mentioned others would be here too but I didn't think..." The bottle girl threw light half substantial arms around the drummed , solidifying as she hugged him tightly.

The crestfallen look was now replaced with utter confusion.

"... Greta?" He said, his voice sounding tight. Would the sensoriums do that to him? "Are... Is it really you?" He wasn't sure what to do here.

Her laugh was light, hearty and bubbling. Eyes closed and the smile made her nose crinkle across the bridge. If it was not her, it was as perfect a replica as could be made.

"Of course it's me. You haven't forgotten me already have you?" Her turn to look crestfallen at the idea that her friend had perhaps let go of her memory.

Slobo at first didn't say anything. Overcome with emotion, he simply hugged her back.

"'Course I didn't! How could anyone forget ya, Secret?" He said as he hugged her, using the point to block view of possible small tears welling up in his eyes.

"When did ya get here?" He paused for a moment. "And when are ya from?" That was an important question on the meatship, after all.

Slobo cry? No, somethings were just beyond belief. And so the hug continued without pause or comment on any errant drops that might well or fall.

"Lots of people have forgotten me in my life, I'm not really all that special. I know that."

She did pull back a bit to answer the last of his questions though. Cissie had mentioned that too, people coming from other times and places. "I just got here really, a bunch of us came out of these plant things. Before that the last thing I remember was asking the team to help me get my dad out of prison." Her face turned to a momentary frown at that, Slobo had been the only one to say yes to her.

Slobo pulled back, trying to look serious and wiping his eyes with his forearm once. He had heard her, and took a moment to organize his thoughts. She hadn't been taken in by him yet...

Slobo could fix history for everyone.

"Well, yeah, but you know they didn't say no ta ya on purpose, right?" The trap was set.

They didn't say no to her on purpose?

"Slobo, they were all very clear about it. They all said it was wrong because my dad was a criminal."

Their moral superiority, annoying and hypocritical as it was, had been made all too clear.

Slobo knew if he hesitated, all would be lost.

"Yeah, but they... were bein' mind controlled." He said in response, feeling horrible. She deserved better than this, deserved the truth, but this might spare everyone a lot of pain. "By Darkseid... See, he wanted ya ta turn all evil and work fer him, so he made them say that so you would think all yer friends abandoned ya. Usin'... yanno... post-hypnotic suggestion..."

Greta's face fell, utter shock and revulsion competing for residence over her features. Her friends, who she had been so angry with, hadn't betrayed her? They had not simply turned her aside because they felt her father didn't deserve the help or that she was being stupid for asking.

The tears started and seemed like they would never stop. "I...I thought they all turned their backs on me. They seemed so against it, saying my dad was a bad guy and we don't help the bad guys. But..it makes sense! I mean Batman is sort of a criminal isn't he? And we help him! Tim wouldn't turn his back on Batman, and Kon and Cass..they would never treat me like that really, Anita would always make time for me."

It all made so much more sense now! Though the looming feeling of becoming evil and a pawn by one of the worst villains ever shook her to the core. "Oh..Oh Slobo. I was so wrong. What a horrible friend I must have been to believe it at all."

Slobo shook his head, trying to force this odd guilty feeling down into the pit of his stomach where it belonged.

"Nah, he had 'em pretty good. He took what was already there, that stalwart goody-goodyness, and twisted it. Anyone woulda believed it. I did." The lies just kept coming, but he kept telling himself this was for the better. "It ain't yer fault or theirs, it's Darkseid's. Guy's a real douche."

Static just watched for a few minutes while Slobo slammed, until he noticed it turning into a tune. It took a minute to sink in, but once it did, he had little choice.

The wonderful thing about the sensoriums was the interactivity; unless the setting was told not to, you could get it to add things as needed. And Static needed a fender.

He had done this before; not terribly often, but often enough to know the right tabs for the song. And he had no problems with the lyrics. He was no Geddy Lee, but he could still pull it off.

Really, all they needed was someone to play Alex Lifeson, and they were set. He looked at Slobo and flashed a smile as he started to play.

The bass rythm added to the section as Slobo began getting into the song more, his body loosening and becoming more fluid as he wailed away in rythm. Something about the activity made him seem at peace, and he wasn't about to ask questions as to why anyone would join in.

He'll probably notice when someone (who smells of covert ham sandwiches) joins in on electric guitar.

He notices, and enjoys the addition. He continued to play until the bridge, at which point he stopped and stared at Allen, waiting for his guitarist to jump in on the rap bit.

He is not disappointed.

"Jack, relax
Get busy with the facts
No zodiacs or almanacs
No maniacs in polyester slacks
Just the facts
Gonna kick some gluteus max
It's a parallax...you dig?"

It's about as white as can be expected, but Allen has no shame. At least he's enthusiastic.

Mai leaned in the doorway, watching Slobo for a moment. She waited for a pause in the beat before she finally spoke, "...so. What do you call this?"

Slobo looked up at Mai, shaken from his reverie. He looked as if she had just asked him what color his eyes were.

"It's... RUSH. Yanno... progressive rock type music?" His voice conveyed the surprise that somehow she hadn't heard of the greatest thing to ever come out of Canada. "Geddy Lee, ugliest man alive, on bass? Ring any bells?"

Mai wondered over to his impromptu drum set, brushing a hand over one of the cymbals. She shrugged and folded her arms across her chest, "...we didn't have it in my world."

Seemed a reasonable explanation to her.

Slobo simply looked at her for a moment, then decided this was a good thing. It was the first time the ninja girl had given anyone anything about herself that he had seen.

"Alright, well, do your people have drums? 'Cause if yer willin' ta teach, I'll play." Team bonding one on one might work in this case.

"We have drums. Just not like this." She shrugged again.

She raised a brow, looked over the drums, looked at Slobo, back at the drums again.

"...OK."

He twirled the drumsticks in his hand with a smile.

"Alright then, what kinda drumbeats they rockin' in crazy ninja girl land? Heavy taiko beats, maybe?"

"...uh. Taiko?"

She arched a brow, "...listen, just start from the beginning, OK? If I'm going to learn this, I want to learn it right."

Sheeana, although immensely overworked, did not let up on her daily explorations of the sensoriums. At that point more than ever, the contents of the subconscious were important, and when they came to the fore in the sensoriums, they were viewable.

She listened intently to the oddly discordant music.

Faith is cold as ice
Why are little ones born only to suffer
For the want of immunity
Or a bowl of rice?
Well, who would hold a price
On the heads of the innocent children
If there's some immortal power
To control the dice?

A meditation on abdicating personal responsibility to the divine? Perhaps this 'music of rocks' wasn't as mindless as she'd first thought. And his rythmicity was certainly pleasing. She almost felt herself lured into sleep by the steadiness of it.

Slobo seemed lost in his own rythm until the chorus, at which point he started singing the chorus despite himself.

Why are we here?
Because we're here, roll the bones
Roll the bones

Why does it happen?
Because it happens, Roll the bones
Roll the bones...

He stopped and sniffed, opening his eyes and looking at Sheeana.

"Heya bright eyes. What's the haps?" He said almost sullenly.

Sheeana glanced him over, taking in his near emosity. She gave him a wan little smile that seemed to say 'everything OK here!', though she'd taken on an aspect of exhaustion. "He makes a good point. Humans have a tendency to say 'that's just the luck of the draw' and abdicate their responsibilities that way. And more music, more rythm is always good."

Slobo pondered for a moment.

"Actually, I always thought the point, in tha end, of the song, was that no matter what happens, ya take the chance. It don't matter why we're here, or why it happens, ya just... well, roll the bones and deal with the consequences." He looked at her, his sullenness replaced by curiosity and the joy of intellectual discussion.

"Yanno, whether there's a god er not, we do what we do. Dig?"

"Well, who would hold a price On the heads of the innocent children If there's some immortal power To control the dice?" She responded with a perfect vocal imitation and a very small laugh. "We're both right in a way. You're thinking of rolling the bones as in throwing dice, and i'm thinking of it as the method of divination. You know, there was a being in my universe who did steal chance from the universe..." She needed this too.

Slobo raised an eyebrow.

"A probability manipulator? We got loads o' those on my world. Make things all kindsa complicated." He shrugged as he thought about it. "Can't say I'm a big fan of 'em..."

"I doubt I would be either...But this person took all of it. He set the universe on the same path. Good or bad, I deplore a predetermined future." The Wild Place within her recoiled at the very thought of it.

Slobo shuddered.

"Yeah, predetermination takes the fun outta life..."

She gave him a teeny little smile. "I knew there was a reason I liked you. Where have you been these past weeks? Were you running through Pavlovian experiments for illusory deserts?"

Slobo thought about it.

"Actually, I remember goin' fer a nap, and then wakin' up earlier today. Guess I was real tired." The Czarnian shrugged.

"I think that computer everyone says does that maze stuff is afraid o' me er somethin'."

Sheeana laughed and it was like small bells. She gently clapped him on his shoulders. "Another feather in your cap! Although I do envy you getting to sleep those weeks away..."

"Don't be." Slobo says dryly. "Nothin' but nightmares. It's gettin' hard ta even get a good rest on this heap."

Oh. So they weren't pleasant after all. The hand on his shoulder turned from a fratboy slap to something more comforting. "I have a place that's protected. You remember when you found me...after the undead battle?"

He shook his head, putting on a weak smile.

"I remember, but unless it can protect me from myself, I don't think it'll do any good." He said matter-of-factly. "It's the same nightmares I always have, it just seems like lately they're sharper, and stayin' in my head longer. Like somethin's crankin' up the power on 'em." Slobo may not be magical, but he's intuitive enough to sense something's up.

"I'm guessin' it's that evil spirit thing Rox has been all about, except he's just usin' what he has ta work with in my case instead o' makin' things up on his own."

"I could give you an autosuggestion...But I doubt you'd want that." Slobo wasn't the type to seek comfort in hypnosis no matter how skilled. "But as a matter of fact, the place is protected from outside interference. Leto and his Golden Path are within the worms there. None can get through. I sleep soundly there, as few hours as that may be." That sleeping just above a number of dangerous predators that could swallow them whole might induce nightmares of the garden variety did not seem to occur to her.

"I appreciate it, but I think I can handle it by myself. Jus' need ta keep blowin' off steam every now and then like this." He said after a moment. "It's safer fer others, as I'm gonna have the nightmares either way and my penthouse at the plaza is pretty trashed from tossin' and turnin'."

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You call that music? [open]

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