Sold My Soul For Rock And Roll

The Showdown

Paul stared menacingly at us, still blissfully unaware of the advantage he'd inadvertently handed me. I know you're all dying of curiosity as to what that advantage is, but I'll have to drag it out a little longer. Sam and Dave started to panic, as the realisation that they'd just lost their only chance of survival sank in. I was the only one who stayed calm and managed to keep eye contact with Paul. To him it probably seemed like a show of bravery, a determination not to look weak. But it was more than that. It was defiance. It was refusal to even act intimidated by him. Because I was now our band's only hope of survival, and I liked my odds. There was a reason Paul could remove Dave and Sam's powers but not mine. He could remove theirs because he was the one who'd given them to them in the first place. But mine? Mine had always been there. If you were to ask my age, before today I'd have said I was a mere eighteen years old. But now I remember the truth, and the fact is I'm a lot older... Nearly 5 billion years older actually. Because I'm one of the original fallen angels. 

You know the story about how Satan and a bunch of his minions got kicked out of Heaven for being too evil? I was one of those minions, before I rebelled. It wasn't even anything he'd done; I'd just gotten bored so I gave up. So really, I'm a rebel against the rebels. But that doesn't make me an ordinary angel; there are the angels, there are the fallen angels, then there's me. I'm in a class all of my own. Satan eventually realised I'd gone AWOL, that's why I had to become human. But now I was back, and I had to face my former master until one of us stopped breathing. I'd make damned sure it wasn't me.  

Paul waved his hand in the air, and the back room we'd previously been standing in vanished. In its place was a familiar landscape to me. The consistently rocky terrain, the constant smell of sulphur... I let a small, undetectable smile cross my lips. I was finally home. He slammed his fist into the ground, and it rippled, sending me, Sam and Dave hurtling backwards. He waved his hands like he was conducting an invisible orchestra, and the rocks rearranged themselves into the shape of a stadium-sized stage before our very eyes. Because of my connection to him, I could see that he was planning a sneaky attack on Dave and Sam. So when one of the stalactites conveniently loosened itself, I was able to use my increased speed to push them from its path. Paul scowled, but he must have assumed I'd had a rush of adrenaline, because he never reacted. Instead he raised himself into the air, and began playing a complex guitar riff that, in my human form, I'd have been impressed by. But now... 

"Hey, I can do that too!" I grinned, spreading my arms and rising to meet him. He stared at me in shock, until the truth sank in. 

"You...!" He snarled at me. 

"Hey Lucy," I replied nonchalantly. "It's been a while. I guess this makes me Underworld hide-and-seek champion, huh? I knew you'd show your ugly face around here again one day, so I had to be ready. Ready to put an end to you, once and for all." I summoned a guitar into my hands and raised an eyebrow. "You brought the lightning, we bring the thunder." Dave immediately knew what I was hinting at and started pounding out the rhythm. "You Brought the Lightning" was a song we'd written for the last album while Paul had been out of the house. Every member of the band knew how it went, except for Paul. We hadn't gotten round to writing a bass-line for it before we'd decided it wasn't good enough, so Paul couldn't even play the lead or rhythm section. Sam smiled as she started to sing as powerfully as her mortal voice could muster. 

"You brought us the lightning, we bring you the thunder//You're over the top, that's why we're pulling you under//We always smile when we watch you cry//We're gonna laugh when we watch you die!" 

The pressure was taken off Sam for a while, and passed onto me and Dave. Dave played as best he could under his conditions, and I poured all my efforts into improvising a solo better than I had ever written before. I even managed to create enough friction on the guitar that the neck burst into flames, but Paul easily dodged the fire I hurled at him. I sighed. We were too evenly matched. Every note I played, he managed to play one just as heavy and powerful. Sam could see I was struggling, and so she tried a last desperate tactic. 

"My mind is reeling//My wounds not healing//I've lost all feeling//Life's so unappealing"  

That was a vocal solo from You Brought The Lightning. We took it out, and it eventually became part of another song, "Break The Ceiling". Sam looked at me, then raised her eyebrow once. Then twice. After the third, I launched my guitar at the cavern's ceiling at the same time she let out the most powerful scream I'd ever heard her make. The guitar hit the rock, leaving a crack all the way along it. When the echo from Sam's voice hit it, the entire section of ceiling collapsed, exposing the sunset-orange sky above us and burying Paul beneath it. In the commotion, I managed to hide myself behind the rubble. I managed to empty my mind entirely so as to seem like I was buried under the rubble too. Paul emerged, dusted himself off, then turned to Sam and laughed. 

"You really thought that would be enough to stop me?" Sam smiled innocently and when she spoke her voice was calm. 

"Not really, but it was enough to throw you off guard for a few seconds. And for someone like you, that's all it takes, right?" Paul glared at her in confusion, before the specially sharpened neck of my guitar sliced through his human flesh and bone and removed his head cleanly from his shoulders. As our bassist lay dying on the ground, I stood over him. 

"You know your mistake? In your arrogance, you forgot that human bodies have human weaknesses. And decapitation is pretty effective against most things. Apart from zombies apparently. But you weren't a zombie. You were just a weak little human." I turned to my human band mates. "No offense guys." They shrugged to show that they weren't hurt. Tired of looking at him, I kicked the head away and out of sight. I extended my hand to Dave and Sam, and when they took it I transported them back to normality.