Saint Joseph School

London and Harmony Zentaro huffed as their practice was cut short. Both were visibly annoyed at the interlopers who invited themselves into the loft that served as both Harmony's bedroom and a make-shift recording studio. London dropped unceremoniously into a large bean-bag chair, and Harmony sulked over to the hot-pink swivel chair by her computer.

"You sounded great!" Harold "Hunter" Zentaro began. "Off the hook! Osborne, right? One of the classics!" He sang a few lines from his version of Rock and Roll Rebel, causing both girls to groan with embarrassment. "C'mon, knuckletap, doll baby!" He held up a fist for Harmony, who rolled her eyes and reluctantly tapped his knuckles. Anything to make them go away sooner.

"Be kickass if you rocked some old-school Zentaro." Warren "War" said, as he opened the mini-fridge and helped himself to a beer. The two girls shot grimaces to each other. Zentaro was more than just a last name. Back in the 80's their fathers "rocked out" in a band under the same moniker. Glam rock, critics would call it, seeing as they sported teased out hair, overdone makeup, spandex and codpieces.

"Yeah, sure, whatever." Both girls mumbled without enthusiasm. Sure, Zentaro was big in the day, but that day was well over 20 years ago. Keeping "the dream" alive was just downright mortifying at this point in their eyes, but neither Hunter or Warren seemed to grasp that concept.

"Our shit is timeless!" Hunter protested.

"Please! It's embarrassing." London jumped in, absently thumbing through the pages of the nearest magazine. "Sure, it was cool back in the 80's to jump around singing "Mom's got no clue", but face it Uncle H... Grams is now in a home for the memory impaired. It's not cool and angst ridden .. now it's just like..."

"Mean and true." Harmony finished.

"Mean and true." London echoed, with a nod.

"Fans are still down with it." Hunter groused slightly, before brightening his mood. "Which is exactly why we are here, babes. Listen, you know us. We're cool." He pulled up a desk chair backwards and sat down, tapping his feet in time to music only he could hear. He flipped his long hair back out of his eyes, and waved his arms around emphatically. "The last thing we want to do is harsh your mellow." Both girls groaned again. "But the Zen's back!"

"We'll be on the ticket for the world wide Glitterblitz tour." London's father finished.

"An entire year. U.S., Europe, Asia, Australia." Hunter chimed in. "And after that, who knows." Please don't ask us to come. Both girls silently wished. Sure, it was cool for Wolfgang Van Halen to play on his dad's tour, but they were Van Halen! Van F'n Halen. Van Halen was a far cry from Zentaro. "Here's where you two doll babies come in. Seeing as your mom and I had "issues" with the last tour," Read: He slept with a bunch of groupies and she got pissed off. "We've both decided it's better if she comes this time around. "

"Aunt Tiffany's making you take her?" London giggled, but a glance from Harmony made her go back to reading through her magazine.

"Hey man, no one makes the Hunter do anything!" He puffed back, slapping his chest. "It was a mutual decision, dig?"

"Whatever..."

"So we're going to stay with Aunt Dee Dee?" Harmony asked, defusing the potentially explosive commentary. "Double D Malone" was London's mother's stage name. Both girls often kidded that they couldn't pick her out of a line-up, giving her penchant of staying out all night and sleeping all day. Harmony's mom, a part time blackjack dealer would often take care of both girls to pick up the slack. Both figured it was the reason they were so close. "Just like sisters." Harmony would say. "Only better." London would add.

The Zentaro men exchanged a glance, with War nodding encouragingly at his brother.

"Not exactly. Seeing as you girls are 'between schools' right now, which is cool, we get it, buck the system, we figured it's a good chance for you to spread your wings. Get out there, start living your lives."

"You're throwing us out? We're sixteen, you can't throw us out. Harmony, can they throw us out?"

"They can't throw us out."

"Whoa, whoa whoa, no way, no way Duckies. You'll always have a crib here. It's just... there's this school in New England, specializes in little dudes with rad skillz like you two." Both girls looked from him, to Warren and back.

"He means it's like a special high school." War explained, closing his eyes while taking a long sip of his beer. "For people with powers and shit." Both girls rolled their eyes again.

"Is this about Heatherwood?" Harmony asked.

"Because Harmony didn't mean to rain ice in the library. It just sort of happened." London helped.

"And London didn't mean ice the cafeteria." Harmony helped as well.

"And we didn't mean to freeze Ginamarie Carlotta inside her new Beamer."

"No, that was on purpose." Harmony reminded her with a nod. London shot her a 'look.'

"Opposite of helping, Harmony..."

"I'm just saying..."

"Point is, we didn't get all up in your grill about it. We get it, you're young, you need to rebel, raise hell. it's cool. War and I could tell you stories about when we were young that'd blow your mind."

"Annnnnd, you have." London added.

"We know the Heatherwood incidents were accidents." Warren clipped in. Truth be told- most were. Sure there was a random prank now and again, but as much as neither wanted to admit it, they didn't have much of a hold on what they could do. Doctors knew it was a mutation, and it was speculated to stem from some drug their fathers took in the 80's, but aside from that, they didn't know much. The girls took it in stride, and jokingly cut a thrash version of the Snow Miser song from Year Without a Santa Claus, but they admitted only to each other how worried they were about the whole situation. "But between that, and going ice in the classrooms..."

"In our defense, this is Vegas." Harmony interjected.

"It gets hot." London finished.

"It freaks people out." Warren shot back.

"But it's cool, go blue, don't conform, you rock on!" Hunter offered. They both rolled their eyes again. "The problem is, Dee is... Dee can't handle both of you on her own."

"She couldn't handle a houseplant on her own." Harmony muttered, causing London to giggle.

"Check it, that high school we found? That's what they do. I mean they specialize in that. In people who can do these totally badass things! You're gonna love it. Plus they have a great club scene, it's close to New York, Boston, and you'll get the chance to grow, come into your own with your music. We'll make sure you have access to all your equipment." London looked at Harmony, and Harmony shrugged back. How bad could it be? They set their own tracks for everything, it's not like they'd be leaving a band behind. For the most part, they were the band. And besides, for a full year they wouldn't have to worry about Hunter or War Zentaro showing up at the school and offering to be the half time entertainment for the homecoming game, singing some incredibly dated musty old song.

"Yeah, whatever, it's cool." They replied together, Harmony went back to messing with the keys to her computer, and London picked up an acoustic guitar to practice. Hunter took a deep breath and exchanged a glance with Warren.

"Last thing, kittens, just so you're not caught off guard, this school, it's got a Catholic vibe to it." Both girls stopped in their tracks. London's hand gripped the fretboard, and Harmony spun back around in her chair.

"Catholic? Like nuns and crosses and stuff?"

"Catholic as in St. Josephs. It's a Catholic boarding school." Warren explained.

"But we're not Catholic! Harmony, are we Catholic?"

"We're not Catholic." Harmony added.

"We're not Catholic." London parroted.

"Your mom thinks you two could stand for a little religion." Warren said between sips of his beer, pointing to London.

"MY mom?" London asked. "My mom thinks we could use ... We live in 'Sin City!' You guys never even got married! How religious is that? "

"And she's a stripper." Harmony said, matter of fact.

"Show Girl." Warren said defensively. ""She is not a stripper. She's a show girl."

"Her whole costume is a hat!" London countered.

"It's not really stripping if you start out nude." Hunter offered helpfully.

"We're sorry, but this is a done deal, chicks." Warren said, finishing the last of his beer, going to help himself to another. London slammed the fridge door shut on him with her foot.

"If nothing else, use it, doll babies." Hunter said, while double pointing to both of them. "Use the anger, use the angst. It'll make your music just that much better."

"Sure, maybe we'll write a classic like "Without a Doubt." Harmony mocked.

"New semester starts next week." Warren said, tapping his empty beer bottle. "You may want to get cracking, get packing." He walked down the steps of the loft as Hunter rose to do the same.

"Use it." Hunter said again, giving them a fists up sign. "Fight the power."

"Just get out." London snapped, tossing a magazine in his direction. But it was decided. Harmony and London Zentaro would be going to St. Joseph's Catholic School in a city called Paragon. Both braced themselves for the culture shock.

Playing out is a rush you can't describe. I mean, you know your songs, you go up with your guitar, you rock out for an hour or so, yell "Thank you, good night!" and get the hell off the stage. It's like someone else takes over almost. Especially for Harmony. She's not exactly shy or anything, but you get her up on a stage with a mic and she's a totally different person. Even from the small gigs we've done so far, I'm hooked. I guess I could almost see why my dad and uncle still play. But do they HAVE to play out in tiger striped spandex with enough hair spray to keep Aquanet in business? Harmony swears there's a hole in the Ozone with their name on it.

I clicked off the television, having seen and knowing full well how the VH-1 "Where are they now - Zentaro" show ends. They couldn't have shown the repeat of Skid Row? Whitesnake? Anything else?

"Harm, you set?" I asked, checking myself in the mirror. I thought I'd be all for the Catholic school look. It worked for Britney in "Baby One More Time, " before she got old and into hard drugs and fat and dumpy. It was sort of a hot look, until you added the blazer, which took it instantly from hot to not. But then again, it was Catholic School, and we'd figured they'd be all for the "not" part. Couple that with the fact that New England was a world away from Vegas, not just location wise, it caused major homesickness. At least Harmony's here, it's cool to have someone in the same boat rowing in the same direction. So yeah. Even with that? The first day of school sucked.

One by one, kids went to the front of the room to intro themselves. It made it pretty easy to size them up. Mousy chicks, emo guys, preps, what guys might be fun to hang around. I figured we'd be doing more or less the same thing all day.

"Harmony Zentaro?" The teacher called. I automatically went to the front of the class with her, nothing either of us would say would be much different, anyway. Harmony slung an elbow up on my shoulder and gave me a smirk to let me know she thought this was just as lame as I did.

"Hey, I'm London. London Zentaro, this is Harmony." I began. Harmony pointed to herself and to me.
"Harmony, London" She repeated.
"Zentaro? Like the hair band?" Someone snickered. Yeah yeah, wow first we've heard that.
"Like the 80's band." I got it over with. "My dad is War, hers is Hunter, we're cousins. And yeah, whatever on that. We been playing for years too, we have our own band, have some recording eqip..."
"Zentaro Junior?" Someone else chuckled.
"2.0!" From the peanut gallery.
"We gotta change our last name." Harmony kidded to me, and the teacher slapped a yardstick down on her desk. I completely lost track of what I was going to say next.
"We're icers." Harmony continued, following what the rest of the class done in naming what ability they had. Again she pointed between her and me.
"Yeah, right, we can do this go ice thing for like what, two years now?"
"Three" she corrected.
"Three years now. And We're from Vegas."
"Off the strip."
"Off the strip, because no one really lives on the strip."
"Just boozers and losers."
"Gambling addicts. There's a ton of them. But yeah, it's our first time on the East Coast."
"So far? It's cold."
"Real cold."
"And we know cold." Harmony finished again, and both of us smiled.
"Ice thing." I added. "So yeah, that it?"
"That's it."
"That's it." I repeated, giving a small wave and we went back to our seats in the back.

Harmony slid a piece of paper across the desk to me, and I coughed to cover up my giggle fit. The words on it read:

"Thank you, good night!"


______________________________________________________________________________
Character Workshop Info: The Zentaro Cousins

The Zentaro cousin's mutations stem from a home brew drug that both of their fathers used several times back in the 80's. The drug had no effect on Warren or Hunter Zentaro, however both London and Harmony were born with lower than normal core body temperatures. Shortly around their 13th birthday, their powers began manifesting. Both have the ability to "ice up", ice forming a protective armor around them. Both are learning to control their abilities, and cover up for each other when one slips - accidentally freezing something or some other mishap. Both miss Vegas and the lax style of living/rule structure they had out that way. "Popular" Zentaro songs include: "No Clue", "Heartbreak Honey," "Just Chill," "Abandon Ship" and "No Holds Barred."

Hi there, I'm Ty. F
orgive me if i get you two mixed up for the first couple of weeks. I promise I'll have it down soon enough. *chuckles*

*waves to the Zentaro girls*

Hey. If you ever want to play guitar with someone, I'm game. I...uh...kinda learned to play a little bit to one of your dads' songs. Partially sorta.

The riff on No Holds Barred was the first thing my Uncle Hunter ever taught me to play.

Let's not do that, ever.

But hey, if you wanna jam anything else? we've sort of taken over one of the music rooms - six. You can usually find us there after school.

We got plenty of equipment, or bring your own gear. It'll be a kick, Hero.

If you guys need help with carting gear or setting up stage I do that sometimes for the choirs so I can probably be of some use. Also nice to meet you guys.

'Ey there London. 'Sup n' all.

I'll try n' crash your jammin' session one of these days, 'kay?

*smirks*

Lady Ga Ga's "Poker Face" woke me up, my general ringtone. I used to have it set up so everyone I knew had a different ring, but keeping track was a pain in the ass. Now pretty much there were three categories. "Poker Face" for whoever, Pink's "So What" for people I wanted to talk to, and Katy Perry's "Waking Up in Vegas" for people I really didn't want to talk to.

It was early and I didn't feel like opening my eyes enough to check the ID, so the caller was met with a sleepy "It's London." On my end.

"Duckie babe!" The voice was too hyper, so I held the phone away from my ear.

"Mic check, hey hey Princess!" came my father's voice. Yeah. They were drunk or high on something.

"Put us on speaker!" Uncle Hunter added. I groaned, rolled over and grabbed a shoe to throw at Harmony.

"It's our dads." I told her, hitting the speaker.

"Hi Dads." She muttered without pulling the covers off her head.

"We're in Germany!" Hunter told us, because for some reason, he thought we gave a shit.

"Few hours before our gig, so we wanted to check in, say hey." My father added.

"Heyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy yeah yeah yeah yeah ahhhhhhhh..." Unlce Hunter sang in his trademark wail. I rolled my eyes.

"Anything new, ladies?" My dad asked. "Been a while, the tours been keeping us pretty busy. You all settled in? How's school, the music, you know, tricks?"

"Any boyyyyyys???" Uncle Hunter chimed in, in a sing-song voice causing me to roll my eyes again.

I thought for a minute. We've settled in fine. Catholic school sucks, we've got our own room now, we're in better control over our ice powers, but Harmony iced once during English class, so I did the same to make it like we were doing it on purpose, and we both got detention. Lame. We've managed to pull together an entire band. I found a roadie who's not only great with sound and electronic stuff, but he always has my back. He's got this spooky gene, but I so don't fear the Reaper, and I can't put into words how much he's done for me here. Then there's Mal, straight up, straight laced, and yeah, I give him shit for it, but he really cares about if I pass or fail, and making sure stuff doesn't get out of hand. I'd never tell him, but there's not many people like that. Laurel - we lucked into Laurel. Laurel, she's both good and she 'gets' it, and yeah, she can be mousy sometimes, but she's come out of her shell a lot, I think. Maybe I yank her out of it sometimes- she's willing to let me. She's committed to the band, and as far as friends go, I'm pretty sure she'd fall into that category. We played out at Rumors, and it was incredible, we totally rocked the house with an old Zentaro song, which stung like hell to play, but what the hell, crowd loved it, and I love playing to the crowd. We wrote our own song that got air-time. Timothy I dogged until he agreed to play with us. He's got arguably one of the most emotionally driven singing voices I've ever heard, but he refuses to sing at all. . I heard him playing one day in Room 4, singing "Mad Mad World", and no lie, it made me cry. Not like openly weep or anything, but my eyes watered up, which was weird, I don't even like the song much. I don't know. It was like this wave of sadness crashed ontop of me, and it was sucked back out to sea the minute he stopped singing. Emo undertow or whatever. But he plays keys and rhythm really well, and it frees up Harm to pour more into singing.

Top it all off with Sage, and who could want more? Sage is just one of those people who make everything better. Yeah it sucks that Uncle Andy gt busted and is now DT'ing in some cell, I got the Free Andy bumper sticker on my messenger bag for him. Sage is just one of those people, like it's easy to be close to him, even when we were miles apart. The Zentaro kids all together, who'd have figured.

So yeah, there's been a ton of changes since me and Harm got here, ton of stuff going on, Prom and parties, playing out and patrolling, not to mention....

"London? You there?" My dad's voice snapped me back to the present. "C'mon, inquiring minds want to know, what's going down at that fancy ass boarding school of yours?" I crinkled up my nose.

"Nothing." I said in a monotone voice. "Hey, Harm? We got anything going on?"

"Nothing." She muttered back.

"Nothing." I repeated. "Can we have our own apartment?" Still no. A resounding no, from both of them.

"Coolio, Coolios, we want to keep it real, no reason a little distance shoud make us ... distant." Uncle Hunter chipped in. I rolled my eyes then drifted back to sleep as he and Warren launched into bragging about the Glitterblitz tour. Whatever.