Devil Went Down to Mitakihara - MGNQ?

Song track for this yarn: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnepPZChA5U

Bobbing her head to the music on her headphones, Chiaki stepped out of the record store, a brown bag filled with 8-tracks at her side. She glanced down the road, trying to decide on what else she had to do with her night. It was getting late, and the moon had been out for several hours now, but she still wasn't tired, yet. Maybe a latte? She hadn't sneered at any hipsters lately, and her favorite shop was just down the road...

Hold up a sec. Why... were everyone going towards the square? It looked like they were tapping their feet to a rocking beat, moesying in rythem down the street. The ones nearest the front were even... was woman wearing a cowboy hat? She cautiously pulled one headphone up, letting the outer world filter in...

Chiaki's eyes narrowed.

No one held a square dance on her turf.

- - - - -

Stepping into the crowded square, she was assaulted with waves upon waves of folk music. People danced in complex knots, wearing colorful bandanas and long, cleated cowboy boots. They bobbed and weaved to banjos, harmonicas, and kettle drums, eating all sorts of buttered, fatty corn treats. In the middle, presiding over the event like a belle at her Cotillion ball, stood a woman, a beautiful oak fiddle in hand.

She was wearing a flawless black and red pinstripe suit, carcoal black hair pulled in a complex braid, watcing the crowd with ebony eyes and scarlet skin the color of cogaulated blood. She had a delicate pair of horns cocking her fedora at a janty angle.

"Oh ho, whats this? Someone who does not enjoy the power of the dance?"

Chiaki caught her eye, noting the pure inky black contained within. It was clear she was a witch, a a musical heretic, a girl who had allowed herself to fall to the corruptive powers of popular music. A trend of banality, leading others to forget the roots of the rythems of pure sound. She had to be stopped.

"You must be the girl I've heard of in this area, the Musical Girl herself! Well, well. Will you participate in my glorious celebration? Or will we move to the main event?" The black and red girl smiled, her grin just a little too large for a natural human face.

 In response, Chiaki pulled her necklace from inside her hoody, holding a small, triangular guitar pick, ivory in color, to the sky. Reaching her hands up in a classic air guitar position, eyes closing to slits of concentration, legs wide, she brought the magical device down, strumming the air.

 A single pulse of pure bass flowed over the crowd, leaving Musical Girl Murderface in its wake, ivory guitar in hand, shoulder mounted speakers ready, huge headphones firmly in place.

 "Hah! You dare bring a guitar to face ME, girl?! I've faced your King of Rock in single stage jams; compared to him, your nothing but a cover artist!"

Musical Murderface narrowed her eyes, clearly insulted by the harsh put down to her thrashing skills. Thrusting one arm in the air, obsideon guitar pick held high, she called upon the spirit of Freddy Mecury, patron saint of Champions, and began to rawk.

Glaring at the Fallen One from under her long bangs, leaning over her intrument in supplication, she wailed on the strings like a girl possessed, sending out wicked rhythems and chords crafted from pure power. Hands dancing on the strings like groupies trying to surf a crowd, she barely noticed the folk festival had died down. Turning to watch the girl in their midst, they began to mosh, taken by the spirit of rock and roll.

The Lady in Crimson watched, letting the Musical Girl play for a few minutes, taking the crowd through the highways of hell. She picked her oak fiddle, bow in hand, then joined the song. At first, it was a duet, as they rode the lightning together.

Soon, though, she took the lead, overpowering the fat bass beats to insert her own wild tunes. Whirling flashes of color and rhythm, calling on the ancient dance of her people. Infectious notes began to take the crowd again, and the mosh pit began to break back up into its previous squares.

Musical Muderface wouldn't go down without a fight, though. Cranking her shoulder speakers up to eleven, her instriment growled out a note of such hard rock that the dancing squares cracked then broke, ten gallon hats flying off from the efforts of their intense headbanging.

It looked like she was winning handily. Evertime the squares attempted to reform, they were broken by moshers, and it appeared the rediculous hats would be replaced wholesale with the much preferably repetitive neck injuries of too much headbanging.

However, the devil is in the details, and the Crimson One still had cards to play. Leaping up on stage, she tapped her foot in a brisk beat as she called out a shanty tune. The fiddle sang out a clever twist of sound, and the Musical Girl was horrified to hear it echoed by the other members of the band. A banjo here, a harmonica there, even the rattle of a finely played washboard, they all started to drown out the heavy metal that she herself was putting out.

They had been playing all night, non stop, and the Musical Girl felt her strength beginning to lag. She was forced to admit that, even at her full power, her volumn might not be high enough for this jive.

"Well, well, if it ain't Ole Scratch, herself!"

Cutting through the waves of folk came a single voice, thick with twang. The music stopped, shuddering to a close, as another stranger walked into the midst. She had faded blue jeans under a pair of long, tall leather riding boots, a simple white blouse, long, messy blonde hair pulled back with a colorful bandanna, and a wide smile showing off her perfect white teeth.

 "Jen-Jenny Cash?! What are you doing in these parts?" The voice from the stage was shrill in sudden fear.

 "Why, I reckon I was in town to visit my good pal Murderface, and what do I hear but a hoe-down in motion. I says to myself, 'Self, why would she be throwing one just for little ole me'?" She frown, her clear blue eyes growing cold and hard.

"While my friend might be many things, a lover of fine folks tunes she is not. So I figured you'd be somewhere not far off. And by my daddy's fiddle, I was right."

She pulled from her back an instrument case, opening it to remove a beautifully worked fiddle made of solid gold. Holding it to the light of the new dawn, just now breaking over the horizon, it glimmered with untold power and promise. Clearly, this was a instrument the gods had once played.

She grinned a cheeky smile to Musical Girl Muderface, standing back to back with her against the crowd. "Care to make this a duet, sweet cheeks?"

 "Next time, I'll have your soul for this, Jenny Cash!" The dark girl shriked, nothing but a hound dog, chased out of town, ain't no friend of theres.

They began to play in concert, rock and folk reunited under the house of the rising sun, an impromptu sold out show.