9Hello, dear readers. Before we begin, I am obligated by the laws of the state of Texas to inform you that… well, that can wait. More pressingly, I am obligated by the rules of this site to inform you that I do not own Rumble Roses, nor do I own the characters therein. Thanks.
With that out of the way, onto the story, or rather, the prologue leading into said story, as you won't find too much plot development in this first chapter. Still, read on!
Chapter 01- Meet the Bambies
"Alright you," the schoolgirl snarled. "I don't like you and you don't like me, but just this one time, we have to work together."
This wasn't the first time Rebecca Welsh had found herself staring down this particular behemoth. In fact, she'd done It at least once or twice every other day for quite some time now. The whole situation was dosed in a wave of déjà vu, although it did nothing to quell the situation's uncomfortable nature.
"Because if we don't cooperate," she continued, "one of us is going down. Got it!"
After her semi-threatening statement, Candy backed away, starring a hole through the large mass that stood before her.
She then held up a crumply dollar bill.
"If you spit this out one more time," she began, "then I'm bustin' out the glass!"
After smoothing it out in-between two of her fingers, Candy Cane turned her dollar sideways and again stubbornly attempted to slide it into the "1 Dollar" slot on the vending machine.
"Vvveerrkkk," the dollar was sucked into the inner-workings of the hulking candy dispenser.
She paused to see if her currency would again be rejected, for such had been the norm for the last couple of minutes, but after a moment of waiting, her confidence was assured.
"Yes!" Candy pumped a fist.
The punk proceeded to step up to the glass with glee, taking note of the numbers under a few snack items that caught her interest as she thought about which one to buy.
"Wouldya hurry it up, Candy!" a voice from across the hallway cried.
"Gimmie a second, would ya!" Candy yelled back, maintaining her focus on the vending machine stubbornly.
Giving her choices one last scan, Candy Cane finally decided on a stick of taffy and proceeded to punch in its corresponding number on the machine's keypad.
"Seriously, Candy?"
This time, she tore herself away from the snack dispenser and gave one of the three girls down the hall her begrudging attention.
This wasn't the first time Rebecca Welsh had found herself staring down this particular trio of women. In fact, she'd done It at least once or twice every Sunday for as long as she could remember. It occurred at least once or twice every time she and the rest of the Killer Bambies assembled for a practice session.
Mandy, the guitarist, stomped her white platforms and marched-towards Candy whilst fiddling with the tie of her pink button-up top.
She came to a stop, indignantly swatting a mendful hand at the almost Elvis-harking quiff she proudly sported before smoothing-out the scrunchied-roll in its back. With her golden-brown hair tended to, the Eisenhower-era enthusiast firmly placed her hands on the waist of her red-rimmed white poodle skirt, looking as if she had stepped-out of a Roy Lichtenstein painting, or a 50's summer flick. Sighing, she closed her sky-blue eyes on a tempering breath before asking in her Brooklyn-awarded accent,
"What's takin' you so long!"
"I'm just trying to get a candy bar!" Candy replied, dripping with sarcasm. She crossed her arms whilst asking ever so sincerely, "Is that alright with you, Mandy?"
"It would be if you weren't takin' so damn long!" Mandy wasn't amused.
And there was of course Brandy, the drummer, looking-on from the other end of the hall through black eyeliner and a sole bang of blazingly blonde hair that crept just past her ears, her wide, lamentful eyes locked on the two, each of them trembling at the prospect of the ensuing quarrel.
She stood with her gloved hands cupped gingerly on the ends of her burgundy jean-jacket, partially obscuring the broken heart on the black t-shirt underneath, tucked neatly into her tight dimly-grey pants plastered to her skinny frame, boasting the same fashionable smudges and faint bleach-spots as the jacket. She would slowly raise an unsteady hand as her voice meakly squeaked-out,
"H-hey, come on, guys…"
Finally, Sandy, the bassist, would be off to Mandy's side, propped lazily against the wall. Mandy might have looked as though she had stepped-out of a 50s summer film, but Sandy looked as though she had stepped-out of a 50s monster film, and purposely so.
Sandy towered over everyone else at nearly 6'4, not including her hair, teased-up and out to a gigantic measure. It was undeniably mane-like, straight and shattered, jet black, sans a pair of bangs notably longer than the rest in the front dyed a vibrant red for when she felt like letting said bangs down for a devillock to loom in front of an eye or her nose.
The self-fancied "Fiendish Femme" of the group, the bassist's pale complexion was contrasted by her constant garbature of overwhelmingly black clothing, allowing only traces of blood-red to provide her palette with anymore color. A touch of eyeliner, a black leather biker's jacket with the sleeves hacked-off (effectively making it a vest), black leather pants, red brothel-creepers, and a tattered midriff-less tanktop stating "I Love Cthullhu", a statement that bore no irony when borne by her.
She gave the ensuing squabble little regard. Normally, Sandy would at least roll her eyes at the whole mess, but she couldn't even be bothered to do so in this instance, as she rather preoccupied with said eyes locked into a "LaVeyan Satanism for Dummies" book, far too enthralled in reading about the finer points of Walpurgisnacht to interject as Candy and Mandy proceeded to bicker as they had been for a better part of the day.
"Well," Candy pulled an exaggerated smile, "I wouldn't be 'takin' so damn long' if someone wasn't freakin' bugging me the whole time!"
"Just hurry it up," the guitarist groaned through somewhat gritted teeth.
"Hey," Candy jabbed a finger at Mandy. "Don't rush me; you've been rushing me all day!"
"Well how long does it take to get a damn candy bar!" Mandy flung her arms up questioningly.
"How long does it take to learn that damn Cramps song?" Candy quickly retorted, an actual laugh creeping into her words.
"Oh, that's real cute!"
"Yeah, unlike that haircut!"
"Oh! Now we're getting clever, aren't we!"
Things were less venomous with the other half of the band down the hall. Catching Brandy just over the rim of her book, Sandy noticed that she was… shivering, cautiously giving glances towards the two currently-feuding members of their foursome.
"Say, Brandy?" Sandy was sure to ask casually, her alto-toned vibrato getting her accostee's attention. She raised the book up displayfully, "This LaVery guy's pretty interesting…"
"Maybe I wouldn' be rushin' you if we wasn't supposed to be in class in five minutes!"
"We're always late anyway, so who cares!"
Hesitantly, the drummer struggled to avert her gaze from the adumbrately volatile clash between Candy and Mandy to the safety of Sandy's towering, cadaverous person to which she was beckoned.
"R-really?" Brandy tried coating the question with an upward inflection, although their was no hiding the fact that she was near pouting. Her hands slowly stroked a lock of her hair as her eyes struggled to refrain from looking forwards. "Who is he?"
With a slight bit of joviality, Sandy went about flipping back to a certain page before returning her eyes to the blonde.
"Well, he's got this whole religious sort of ideology called 'Satanism', and some of the little commandment deals he's got listed in here are pretty nice."
She paused for a moment, allowing Brandy to give a feeble nod before returning to the book, scanning its current page for a particular line.
"Like this one," Sandy jabbed a finger once she found it, and recited, "If someone bothers you, ask them to stop. If they do not stop," she had to pause for a grin here, "destroy them".
Brandy's eyes sank.
"'Destroy them'?"
"Yeah," Sandy smiled. "Cool, right?"
Brandy's eyes, still heavy, turned to the left.
"Ms. Spencer's gonna be pissed, Candy!"
"Then let her be pissed; I want a freakin' snack!"
"I don't care for conflict," her head slowly dropped with a whining murmur.
"Oh, right…," the smile left Sandy's face. She looked to Brandy's current source of wrought emotions, finding that the altercation was beginning to escalate in volatility, and also wit.
"Ay, fuck you!"
"Fuck you, too!"
Brandy's gentle strokes of her hair were slowly morphing into rougher tugs. She felt her legs beginning to tremble.
"What'd you say!"
"You heard me!"
As the two feuding Bambies stepped closer to one another, Sandy's eyes went down to the book in her hand.
"I should kick your ass!"
"I'll kick your ass!"
Tinges of pain were being sent through Brandy's slowly stretching hair follicles as her trembling grasp tightened, hoping to hold her mind onto those tinges, not wanting it to wander onto any other thought, or that her heart was almost beating through her shirt.
"You couldn't kick my mom's ass!"
"Your mom's a whore!"
They were practically nose-to-nose at this point. Sandy's nose was deep in her book as she reread a particular passage.
"At least I got one!"
"You think that's funny!"
"Yeah, I do!"
"You won't think it's so funny when I ki-"
"AHH!" Brandy let out a yelp.
Mandy and Candy looked to the source of the sudden yelp just in time to see a projectillic hardback book careening towards them, barely ducking out of its path and leaving it to smack against the nearby wall before plopping onto the floor. Instinctively. their eyes snapped to the book's origins, seeing Sandy, her eyes practically burning through their own, standing in front of Brandy with her arms pointedly crossed.
"Jesus Christ, Sandy!" Mandy practically squealed, her eyes wide as saucers.
"What in the hell was that!" Candy stammered, visibly shaken.
Sandy continued standing there, static in spite of her targets' shared animation. The tension demanded that a silence and stillness fall over the group.
"Are you done?" the beastly bassist tilted her head with a simple question, the surreal calmness of which soon dawned on the two.
"Y-y-you just threw a freakin' book at us!" Candy jabbed a damning, yet almost vibrating finger towards Sandy, intimidation unsteadying her joint-control.
"Annnnd?" Sandy cocked an eyebrow, sneering through her teeth.
Mandy smirked through her nose, slowly beginning to take a few sauntering steps up to the Cthullhu enthusiast, dodding her head left and right.
"Aaaannnd…," she laughed, then her smile instantly faded just before she practically leapt at Sandy, grabbing her jacket. "Sowhatthahelliswrongwithyou!"
Sandy shoved the guitarist off of her.
"You two have been at it all day!" she nearly stomped a foot as her voice was finally risen to a yell. "What's the problem now!"
"Hey, I was just trying to get a candy bar," Candy took a step forward, pleading her case, "but someone kept interrupting me!"
"Ay, I just thought she was takin' too long!" Mandy cut-in quickly. "We're already late fo'class as it is, ya know!"
Sandy breathed heavily through her nose as somewhat of a smile crept into her lips, accompanied by a roll of her eyes as the fire that had previously burned in them seemed to dwindle. She opened her mouth to speak, but was stopped when another voice spoke for her.
"Just let Candy get her candy and we'll all go!" Brandy's voice came in a quick blurt of words from behind Sandy. Surprised, the ghoulie girl stepped off to the side, gently ushering the drummer towards the previously feuding pair with a quick nudge.
Once center-stage, Brandy's eyes darted back to Sandy, getting a frantic nod of encouragement, then back to Candy and Mandy, getting a pair of confused, and almost shocked looks, though they went unnoticed by Brandy, then sporting a "deer in the headlights" expression. Had she actually said such a daring thing? In such a loud way? What was she supposed to do now?
"Is…," the drummer began to whimper something out merely because she felt obligated to do so, "… is that alright with you guys?"
There was another beat of silence. Candy and Mandy mutually wilted at their drummer's vulnerable display, only to feel a bit of guilt bloom inside their stomachs upon realizing what had caused her clearly distraught state.
"Ehh, yeah," Mandy began gingerly after a moment of thought, forcing a reassuring nod out of herself as she tacked-on, "Don't worry, Brandy. We're fine."
"Right!" Candy attempted to beam, going so far as to slap a friendly hand on Mandy's shoulder. "See? Look, we're cool. See!"
They both paused a moment, hoping for a gaugable reaction from the drummer. They didn't receive much of one, but the fluncidness of her previous expression had visibly improved just enough to where it could be read as content.
"Yeah," Mandy dryly returned the pat. Content was enough of a go-ahead for her.
Rebecca sighed.
"Say, let's just go to class, alright? Forget all this stuff, 'kay guys?"
Brandy managed a strained "mhm" whilst the other two Bambies gave their vocalist a nearly simultaneous nod. She stepped forward, stopping to give Mandy one last look before she continued on down the hall towards the group's shared Bio-Chem class. Mandy soon followed, hesitating to give the book at the other end of the hallway a concerned parting glance.
As Brandy went in-toe, Sandy lingered behind, going the opposite direction, ultimately retrieving her book. Upon scooping the torpedo-sent tome from the ground, she went about fingering through its pages back to that prompting passage she had taken to heart,
"If someone bothers you, ask them to stop. If they do not stop, destroy them".
"G'ah," she groaned, shutting the book. "I knew I forgot something…"