"Rory! This is what my name looks like; Roooorrryyyyy." The blonde giggles while he messes with the equipment. Benny rolls his eyes beside him, "Will you grow up? This is serious."
"Says the almost 17 year old wearing a tin foil hat." Mary chuckles. He squints at her, "It's aluminum foil, to keep Serena's crazy waves out of my brain."
Rory's eyes go wide and he immediately runs to get his own foil hat. "Didn't Ethan say ear plugs were fine?" Mary asks. Benny shrugs, "Yeah, but I'm not taking any chances, babe."
"You guys are idiots." Sarah chimes in. "By the way, where is Ethan?"
"We ordered him to sit this one out." Mary crosses her arms, "He needs to recover after what happened with Serena earlier." Sarah nods and makes an "o" shape with her mouth.
"Benny! Is my hat tight enough?" Rory asks. The brunette turns with a small smirk, and folds the hat down on Rory's head so it went over his eyes. "Yeah."
Mary chuckles, "Benny." She stops the blonde from walking away and reaches up to fix the hat for him, Rory swore he could feel his heart bursting out of his chest. "It may look stupid but it may not be stupid." Mary says. "There." Rory's face was beat red, but he tries his best to hide it by shuffling away quickly and muttering a "Thank you."
"You're no fun." Benny jokes, nudging Mary in the side. "I'm so fun! I just like to keep my friends safe." Mary protests.
"Hey, guys." Ethan appears behind the group. "Wha-Ethan! We told you to stay home." Mary says. "Yeah, you can't risk any more exposure to Serena's song." Benny adds.
Ethan sighs. "Benny, when we were eight, and we went to see Buzzy and the Big B Band, and I cried?" Rory cracks up, "He cried?" His smile fades when the three glare at him.
"Did you let me face the music alone?" Ethan continues. Benny smiles, "Thank you," he holds out his arm for a dramatic handshake, "Brother."
Mary cranes her neck when she notices Serena walking up to the stage. "Guys! Ear plugs!" She whisper yells.
Ethan comes over to the equipment, headphones on, the others also watching the screen as Serena starts her song.
The screen starts to go nuts as she sings, as well as the kids watching. "The ultrasonics are off the scale!" Ethan shouts.
"What?"
"There's definitely something going on here."
After a minute, Mary feels a hand on her shoulder. "Ah! Hey!" She shouts as a tall guy tries to push her down. She kicks him in the leg, hard, and he falls to the ground.
Another person comes after Ethan, Sarah appears to stop them. "Ethan!" She pushes the other person away, but also accidentally knocks Ethan down, his headphones coming off with him.
"Uh oh." Mary nods to the boy on the ground.
"What?"
Ethan reaches over to grab a jar full of food, aiming it at Rory, Mary, and Benny. Sarah quickly stops him by pushing him away, "Ethan! What's wrong with you!" Ethan shakes her off and lunges at them again, but this time Sarah intentionally knocks him to the ground.
Serena smirks at the chaos that has enfolded in front of her, "Thanks for listening."
"If Ethan's mom finds out about this, I'm so fired."
...
"Serena's voice is full of paranormal acoustic energy, it's like affecting people's brains. Time to test it, Rory?"
The blonde nods and sits down in a chair, a headband around his head with glowing lights, connected to their machine.
"So this is Rory's normal brain wave pattern, pretty dead." Ethan says with a shrug. "I'm laidback, dude, why stress?" Rory adds.
"Play a bit of classical music." Benny taps a few keys, a soft ambient classical song comes on within the headphones, Rory takes a relaxing sigh. "Rory is nice and calm."
"But, as soon as I play even a second of Serena's song..." Benny says. Suddenly, Rory's eyes glow yellow, his fangs pop out and he raises his hand to them. "And, Rory tries to bite his arm off." Mary states, placing a stern hand on his arm to stop him.
"So, Serena is a siren. How do we stop her?" Sarah asks. "Well, according to Greek mythology and Wikipedia," Ethan replies, "the sirens lost a singing contest to the muses and were destroyed by their own jealousy."
"Too bad we don't know the muses' agent." Rory chimes in, half kidding.
Ethan squints, then his face lights up, "wait what if we become the muses? We get into that talent show, and when she turns on us, we use her own song against her."
"How, though? I mean what if she likes her own ya know, shrill?" Mary replies.
Ethan nods, "Yeah, huh...but, wait, we can rig up a phase inverter and send a negative image of her own evil harmonics right back at her."
"Ooo, yeah the old evil harmonic phase inverter trick. Good work." Benny praises. "Yeah, we should totally invert her face." Rory adds, "But, how do we get on the show and be good enough to make her jealous?"
"And you'd probably have to get really close for the phase inverter to even work, right?" Mary asks.
Ethan shrugs, "Simple. Music these days is all downloaded on computers, we just gotta figure out the formula for the perfect song."
"Okay," Sarah nods, "Well just incase these three don't become the hottest boyband of all time, I'm gonna have to force Mary into Erica and I's dance routine, as well as add more kicks."
"Wha-no." Mary whines, "I told you I'm not dancing."
"Why not? You're awesome at it! I have video proof-" Sarah immediately gasps and puts her hand over her mouth, "Sorry."
"Sarah!" Mary shouts through clenched teeth.
"What?" Benny wonders. "Ooh, is it embarrassing?" He giggles at Mary while she rolls her eyes, "Maybe."
"I wanna see it!" Benny grins and turns to the vampire sitting down, "Sarah, phone!"
"Sarah, no!" Mary protests and holds Benny back with her arm.
"Hey, I'm not a dog, okay?" Sarah scoffs, "Benny, she's really embarrassed about it, so leave it be."
Benny sighs, "Fine." Mary smiles, "Thank you."
"Can we get back to Serena and our formulated song?" Ethan interjects.
"Yes, you go do that, I'm gonna go talk to Erica. Mary, you coming or staying here?" Sarah asks.
"Do I even have a choice?"
"Nope."
...
Surprisingly, the guys got into the talent show, despite their slightly awkward and weird song, while the girls didn't.
"So we're just gonna hang out backstage like losers?" Erica complains. Sarah sighs, "We're here to help, Erica."
"Yeah, once Serena hits the stage, things are going to get crazy." Mary adds, adjusting the blue sparkly jacket Sarah convinced her to wear, even though they weren't even going to be in the talent show now.
Erica shakes her head and clenches her fists tightly, "If she opens her mouth again, things will get crazy." Mary takes a step back, actually feeling a little scared by the blonde's tone, "You're really mad."
"Yeah, well!" Erica throws her hands up and storms off back to the backstage area, the other two following.
"Thanks for helping with my hair, I can't really use a mirror." Rory says to Benny, unaware of the crazy triple mohawk Benny did. He couldn't help but let out a chuckle, "Anytime, champ."
"Hey, Rory," Ethan appears next to the two, "Your mom is here, right next to your grandmother."
Rory shakes his head, "Oh that's not good." Benny nods as well, "Yeah, I'm worried about my grandma too."
"No, you don't understand," Rory interjects, "i'm worried about everyone else, my mom can really throw em.'"
Ethan sighs, "Well, will your grandma back us up when the magic starts flying?" The other brunette shakes his head, "No chance, as soon as the music starts playing that hearing aid is going off. She hates anything without an accordion in it."
The sound of clapping filling their ears, and Mr. Stern dismissing the last act, was their queue to head up on stage. "Before we get to our showstopper, here is an act that can only be described as well...next." Their bitter vice principal states. "MC Monstabat and...musatronic?"
"Musatronics!" The guys shout. The crowd erupts in applaud as Benny starts the song, and Ethan begins to sing into the microphone, his voice auto-tuned so much it was almost unrecognizable.
Backstage, Mary sat in a chair in front of a mirror, slightly bobbing her head to the music while Erica brushed Sarah's hair. "Hey, I heard about your little dance implosion," Serena pipes up from behind them with a twisted smirk, "Whoops."
Erica's face flashes with red anger and she lunges toward her, growling. Luckily, Sarah was quick to stop her, "Whoa-ignore her, Erica. She'll be toast in a few minutes."
"Yeah, I just hope this works and no one gets seriously injured, I get really worried about Benny during these crazy showdowns." Mary admits. "He'll be fine, don't worry." Sarah reassures.
Back onstage, Serena notices the crowd genuinely enjoying the guys' music, which didn't make her too happy. "These people are mine!" She shouts.
"Okay, well, she's mad," Benny says to Ethan, "I guess we got that right."
Serena balls up her fist tightly and storms onto the stage, singing. "Earplugs!" Ethan instructs, the guys follow, along with Mary and Sarah backstage.
"Stop it!" Serena yells at the guys, "These people need to feel my pain, and so do you." She sings again, this time a lot louder, which results in Erica, without earplugs, hearing it. "Ow!" She cries, the shrieking nearly unbearable.
Half a second later, though, the anger appears. Her eyes shine yellow, her fangs pop out and she storms onto the stage. "Oh crap." Mary nods to Erica walking towards the stage, the girls hurry after her. "Erica, stop!"
The audience was nothing but chaos, the group struggles to manage it onstage. Ethan points their phase inverter at her, ready, when Erica appears holding a large amp. She throws it at them with ease, knocking the inverter over and nearly hitting the guys.
"I got her!" Sarah grasps Erica's arms and pushes her back to the stage. "You deal with Serena! Mary, help them!"
Mary nods and hurries over to aid the guys, "You okay?" She asks Benny, helping him up from the floor. "I'm okay! Help us with the inverter."
They get the inverter back up and running, while Sarah struggles with stopping Erica from biting her face off. "Ethan! Hurry up!" Sarah shouts.
Suddenly, the magician kid from the act before them comes up on stage and starts smacking Benny. "Hey!" Mary shouts, "You wanna see a real magic show?!" She hurls a small ball of light towards the kid, not one that would actually hurt him or do any damage, but enough to push him away.
"Yeah, take that, Marty! That's my girl!" Benny shouts with a big grin on his face that Mary returns, despite the chaos going on around them.
Finally, Benny's grandma looks up from her knitting to see what was going on, just as Ethan finally had the inverter going on Serena. The siren screeches, then turns and screams at them. The harmonics coming out push her to the ground, everyone else beginning to return to normal.
"You can't keep me quiet!" Serena growls.
"Sorry? What was that?" Ethan shouts back with a smirk, her screams becoming less and less hurtful to the crowd. Ethan turns it up more just as Evelyn notices Serena about to explode into purple light, she quickly points her finger at the curtains to shut them.
The group look at where Serena stood in awe, even though this was probably the fifth time they've seen a monster implode like that. "That was intense." Ethan admits.
"Well, guys, I think we just recorded our first number one!" Benny jokes. They all laugh and cheer, while Erica returns to normal and lets Sarah go, "Sorry."
The guys and Mary come out from behind the curtain, immediately being met with applause. "Very interesting act, guys, very...interesting," Mr Stern states, "take a bow."
"Musatronics!"
🔮