Alison and Roxy (Backdated)

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Roxy helps Alison try to figure out her image inducer.

The basement of the mansion was a fascinating place. It was like a treasure trove of discarded furniture and boxes of old clothing. Roxy liked to imagine it had been featured in horror movies. It was eerie down there. She loved it. Sure, the sunroom was nice, and Boiler Beach was nice, but sometimes dark and eerie was the perfect atmosphere for songwriting.

Not that Roxy was writing a song at the moment. Well, she supposed she was, because songs came from everything you did in life or whatever the quote was her parents always used on her. At the moment, however, she'd gone from watching Audra McDonald singing Yahoo Answers on 'Jimmy Fallon' to Fallon's remake of the 'More Than Words' music video with Jack Black. Funny stuff. She strummed the intro on her own guitar and started singing the song herself. "Sayin' I loooove you, is not the words I want to hear from youuuu..."

This place was weird, Alison thought to herself. She got that basements weren't meant to be exactly the pinnacle of human living conditions, but there was just something subtly wrong about this one in her eyes. But despite all of her efforts, she couldn't quite put her finger on exactly what it was.

Maybe it was because she was seeing it through someone else's eyes? I mean, technically they were someone else's eyes, right? She had finally gotten her Image Inducer from the professor. Only problem was, for something the size and shape of her old digital watch, this thing was complicated. The professor had tried to explain it to her properly, but he'd used a lot of big words she didn't understand and had spoken really fast and Alison hadn't stopped him to make him explain slower. So they were her eyes, but... not.

It was confusing and she wasn't really sure how she felt about being someone not her. So she'd been trying to adjust it from the original form it'd had (someone far too not-her to be allowed, in her mind) to something that was clearly her and yet... not Dazzler.

She knew what she wanted. She just couldn't get it to work right. This was not her fault. And she had no idea if she'd managed to fix the hair, yet.

She wheeled around another corner, trying to shake that awkward and worried feeling while ducking rooms and just generally seeing what else the mansion had to offer. She'd already found a photography dark room (why did they need one of those?), tons of storage, and something that looked a little too close to an armory for her liking.

And just when she thought the basement couldn't get any creepier, she heard singing. And, having never really seen a horror movie before and thus not realizing everyone at home would be screaming not to do it at their TVs, Alison went looking for the source.

"It's not that I wannnnnt you, not to say, but if you- ah!" Roxy jumped when she saw someone approaching in the shadows. She squinted as they came into the light. "Uhh... Ali?" It looked vaguely like Ali, except... not. And the hair. What was up with the hair? "Uhh, that's a really... interesting hairstyle," she smiled politely.

Ah, it was just Roxy. Alison smiled. "Hey, Roxy. I just need you to help me with something real quick."

She turned and looked the other musician square in the eyes. "Am I... ginger?" She was supposed to be ginger. That's what she'd been trying to change the settings to for damn near half an hour. But it was nearly impossible to see your own illusion in this lighting, for whatever reason.

She just hoped she was ginger.

Roxy's mom loved Doctor Who, so she chuckled at the question and responded with the next part of the quote. "No, you're just kinda... brown," she quoted, even though it also happened to be true.

Typical. Alison sighed. "Dammit. This thing will never work right!" She shook her wrist with the image inducer for emphasis. "Brown is too... 'not-me', if that makes sense."

She slumped to the ground, defeated, and took the image inducer off. She'd figure it out later. "So," she asked. "What'cha doing?"

Roxy shrugged. "Just messin' around. 'Supposed to be working on a song, but... you know how it is," she smirked wryly. "Kinda blocked at the moment. Did you want a hand with that thing? Monet and Tabs and I have been playing with mine a whole bunch. Tabs even figured out how to get it to project a monkey-type form. I'm sure we can find you some ginger in there. Cuz yeah," she grinned, "I can't see your hair as being regular old brown."

"That'd be great." She tugged on a strand of her own hair; her real hair, this time. It was still bleach blonde from her last tour, although her roots were showing something awful as she tried to grow it out reasonably. "I'd like to go back to being a redhead as soon as possible."

"It would have killed me to bleach away that really pretty natural red if I'd had that colour," Roxy responded sympathetically, turning her laptop towards Alison. "It's awesome that you wanna get back to it." She pulled up a bookmarked page of colour hexcodes and showed it to Alison. "These help with programming in new colour codes," she informed the other girl. "See any shades you like?"

Alison shrugged, taking the color swatches. "It wasn't too big a deal when we did it. For the Taming the Noise tour that we just wrapped up. Seemed like a good idea at the time, at least." She tugged on a strand. "It was fun for a while, but... I'm a redhead. I'd like to get back to that, if I could."

Of course, the shade couldn't be too similar to what her real color was. Otherwise she ran the risk of being recognized. She mentioned as much to Roxy.

"What about this one?" She pointed to a fiery, bright red that wasn't too similar to her natural crimson. Close, but not quite the same shade.

"Ooo! Yeah, I like it!" Roxy responded enthusiastically. She showed Alison how to program the code into the image inducer and adjust the dial. "So how did you like performing at the O2? That's where Taming the Noise was in London, right? What did you think of the acoustics there?" It was one of the running arguments in her family- her father hated performing there, but her mother loved it, so Roxy was curious to see what Alison thought.

Ugh, the O2. "Awful." Whoa, Alison. Blunt much? "Absolutely horrid. At least, when I was there. The tincan echo was so bad it actually interfered with the show. Even if it didn't completely muddle the beat, the bounceback was so bad it completely messed up my powers. The lights were all kinds of wrong. One of the worst shows I ever did."

She slipped the image inducer back on, and felt that weird tingle of the illusion settling over her. She stood and spun. "So? Better?"

Roxy chuckled. "You sound like my dad. He hates the O2. Ooo yeah, gorrrrgeous," Roxy grinned, doing her best impression of... somebody. She didn't even know who, but it was an old movie star or costume designer who rolled their 'rs'. Or maybe she was just doing a drag queen impression. That was also possible. "Hmm, maybe tweak the skin colour a titch though? You look a bit ruddy. Maybe cut out a bit of the red, add a little... what makes things less red and more 'English rose'? Blue? I kinda suck at hexcolours, sorry."

"Don't worry about it," Alison said, shaking it off. "I couldn't even get the thing to change my hair color. You know way more about it than I do."

She'd have to make certain it was just like she liked it later. After all, it was going to be... not her, but kind of her? for the next while as she tore up the school.

"So thanks. I needed the help."

"Anytime," Roxy smiled. She wrote the numbers of the hexcodes they'd found for Alison down on the closest thing she could find- her math textbook- so they wouldn't lose them and then programmed some different numbers into it, giving Alison green skin and purple hair. Then she programmed her own for purple hair and blue skin. "Alien Girl Rock Band!" she shouted in a rock yell, grinning. She even added some tongue waggling and some rock hand gestures. "I think we should make a movie of this. Except, y'know, not," she added quickly, deflating a little, "since you're trying to get away from all that for a while. Sorry."

Alison pulled off the image inducer. "No, no, it's..." She sighed heavily. "I dunno. It just seemed like something I had to do. I couldn't keep..." This wasn't coming out right. How does someone explain their innermost feelings?

Besides in C major, obviously.

Still. Roxy was just too adorable in her enthusiasm to leave it at that. "Maybe we still can. Once. Maybe." She smiled. "I won't make any promises, but..."

"Don't worry about it at all," Roxy assured her, patting her shoulder. "And you don't have to explain it to me. Why you walked away, I mean. I mean, I obviously don't get it. But I do kinda know what it's like to never feel like you can be yourself, to feel like you're being watched every minute of every day by people who either love you or hate you and just want to see if you do something that'll make them love you more or hate you more." She made a face.

"When I figure it out, I'll let you know."