#rockoutshipping

The RockOutShipping kids!!!

Sara has done it again! Introducing NIRVANA, Roxie and Piers’ youngest child!

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Insert, coil, pluck. Next. Roxie strummed softly, listening to the discord of three loose strings in her Halo. She’d gotten this guitar when she was 12, after casting down the conservative chains of the double bass violin her father rented monthly for middle school.

Pops had bought it for fifty poké- and she loved it like a sixteen year old loved a shiny new car. Seven years later, it was still her faithful. It was a beaten down, black Venoshock Halo- she’d added the headstock and body pieces herself with rillaboom glue and lots of paint. Her father hated it, but he loved her.

She picked up the last string and began to unravel it- Ernie Ball, Power Slinky Bass gauge .055. She inserted it into the bridge, clamped it and finished off by inserting and wrapping the end around the machine head on the headstock and turned the key. It was quiet backstage while the roadies worked around her. Calm as she plucked at the strings. Just her, Ernie Ball and the slow, steady thrum of low notes being forced into tune. It was a few moments before she heard an echo of the note and it took a few more moments for her to register that it wasn’t, in fact her Halo, but someone else’s.

Roxie looked up and caught eyes with a form not much taller than her, baby blue and dark toxic purple, black eyes. The Toxtricity plucked at the organs on it’s chest, nodding it’s head as it continued to play the single note. It was almost as if it was saying, “Hey. I can do that too.” She smiled at it and continued turning her key until she realized.. “Are you trying to help me tune?” Toxtricity nodded to her as she waved it over, “Come on then.”

The Toxtricity padded over on a slow, hunched over gait before it sat down with her on the floor. Roxie finished tuning the E String and moved onto her A. Toxtricity matched her, she smiled at it. “Who are you?” It stopped strumming at that, looked around for a moment, then shrugged. “Very funny.” Roxie moved on, working quietly with Toxtricity until she was all tuned. “Thank you..” she smiled at the Pokémon, “You can come back and hang whenever you want by the way, maybe we can jam?”

Toxtricity nodded, and electricity crackled around it as it sat up and began to strum again. Roxie got the message and soon the two were playing, anything, everything. Sometime later, Roxie felt the energy of another presence. It seemed that Toxtricity sensed it too, marked by the way it missed a note and fumbled. She stopped, and looked around.

Sitting behind her on a stack like a gargoyle was a tall man with tired, but kind eyes. He was watching her with shy interest. She knew his face, but couldn’t remember his name. .. Pryce? Pierce? The singer from Yell, the band opening for her own on this tour. “Is this your Toxtricity?”

“Yeah.” He gave a small smile, “He’s always runnin’ off to find better musicians to scrap with.” He pointed to himself, “I only heard a couple mins of it but.. Never heard anyone shred a bass like that.” Piers! His name was Piers! Roxie couldn’t help but smile at his compliment, his voice was a low tenor.. and mixed with his accent.. it was nice.

She couldn’t help the blush she felt hot on her cheeks. “You’re a good singer.” She offered, she had heard some of Yell’s stuff- she’d had no choice really. When Toxic Koffing was in the early stages of setting up dates for The Cavalier Tour, she, Billy Jo and Roughneck Nicky had listened to over twenty courting bands to open for them. There was just something about Yell that had really spoken to her soul.. “But thanks..” She sat up and stretched. “I’m Roxie.”

“Piers.” His accent made it sound like ‘Pierce’ so she hadn’t been exactly wrong. “.. Thank you, by the way. For givin’ me and my band a chance.” Sounding more like ‘chonce.’ Roxie couldn’t help but give a small giggle, and she watched him as he sized her up.

She shrugged a few moments later, “Something about your demos really.. spoke to me. I could feel your music in my bones. If you shook me.. you’ll shake up the crowd.”

“Well I don’t do encores.” Piers stated, as if by habit.

Roxie squinted at him for a moment, “We’ll see about that.” Her fingers absentmindedly ran over the strings. “So do you play?”

He shook his head. “I only sing, I’ve got these lazy pinkies I’ve been tryna train for the past ten years.. hasn’t quite worked out. Plus I just enjoy singin’ and writin’.”

“Well.” Roxie moved to get up, “Can’t wait to hear what you’ve got. We should.. jam.. whenever you get some spare time.”

Piers was quiet for a moment, before he nodded. And she moved to put away her bass, “Still won’t do any encores.” And then he turned to his Toxtricity, “You.” He snapped, “Stop runnin’ off, I ain’t got time to chase you around.”

Roxie watched him go as she shut her case, locked it, and hauled it off to the room backstage where Billy and Nicky would probably be sleeping off their jet lag.