It was an odd partnership; one might not expect a skeleton and a hippie to join forces, but they seemed to get along quite well. Ever since Allen found Jason sobbing alone in an alleyway, the bassist had dedicated a large portion of his time showing his new counterpart the ropes of Jingletown's current punk scene. This was, of course, beneficial to Earth's new champion, enough so that he lied about his identity in order to milk every last drop of sympathy. To Allen, the skeleton was that of a famous rock star, one that fought his way back to the land of the living to fight for humanity's freedom.

Spewing bullshit was Jason's specialty, after all.

Allen was gullible, but his passion for Jason's fight didn't seem to know any bounds. The bassist was convinced that they'd be able to fight back whatever hordes of undead or demonic entity that'd come their way. He believed it so vehemently, in fact, that he had taken it upon himself to assist Jason in creating this Jingletown-based band. How would they do it? Simple: scope out up-and-coming underground artists to make an all-star super-group and, after a few weeks of practice, stop the demon at the battle of the bands to regain Jason's body and win for humanity.

As the skeleton was given the bassist's rather... inspired rundown, he couldn't help but fixate on how absolutely fucked they were. There wasn't a chance in hell that they'd be able to form a good band on such short notice, and even then, how was Jason going to be able to prepare anyone for the demon they were going to face? The singer only had one conversation with the fiend and lost his entire body because of it, and they would be expected to play music against him? He was called the Demon of Punk Rock: a name that Jason would likely have adored in any scenario that didn't involve loss of his property, sanity, or soul.

It felt like every force in the universe wanted Jason to fail, and he had only been dead for twenty-three minutes and counting.

However, as Jason settled onto a bar stool in a smoke-filled bar, some of that stress seemed to vanish. If he had a body, he'd probably pin it on shock or something. Could skeletons fall into shock? He considered asking Allen, but the bassist wouldn't know, and any more conversation between them might've sent Jason over the edge.

...

Damn. Now that Jason had time to listen to it, the music in the club wasn't actually that bad. Jason's focused shifted up to the band, but he couldn't actually pin what he liked about the music. The frontman was okay, but he was far from a show-stealer. The drummer? No, that couldn't be it; he could barely keep time. This contemplation was brought to a close when the guitarist began her solo. If Jason still had eyes, they would've widened. Allen was obviously familiar with her music because he could only smile and nod his head, seemingly withdrawn from the intensity of the song the guitarist played.

When the band's act closed, Jason looked to his bassist with awe. "I need her name."

"Her? Amanda."

"Amanda," Jason repeated as he watched the band begin to disassemble their setup. "I think I need to talk to her."

"You might not want to do that, dude."

But Allen's words fell on deaf ears; Jason was already gone.