[ WP ] Magic is discovered and it 's channeled with music . Modern nations dissolve and new countries rise in their place divided by the preferred music . In the frozen north lie the Metal kingdoms . Far to the south are the countries of Soul etc .

It had been weeks since Magic returned to the world. First it was subtle, then... then Musicians learned fast that their melody and song carried threads of power. They tried to rebel against their corporate masters, but as the old stories warn be wary of what oaths you make lest you find your selves in Contracts that bind. 
 
 These hateful men and their caged Songs swept the land. Traditional armies were not as ineffective against the elements as one may first think, but when song pulls at hearts and men turn from friend to fiend the Old Countries soon fell. 
 
 Yet these would-be Masters were soon challenged. The Magic was not the only thing to return to the land. Beasts of all nature and means roamed the land. Some offered wisdom. Some offered Mischief. Others offered only Death and Blood. 
 
 *** 
 
 A stocky muscled teenager surveyed the broken remains of his neighborhood. His band stood together, but to a man they were all exausted. When the Youkai came next they would have no shield. The Metal would not die, but flesh? Flesh could not endure. 
 
 `` Miri,'' A kid offered their singer a water bottle. `` We've got everyone evaccuated to the park. Kamio told me to tell you the Coilition is holding and you should get moving before the Vocoloids show up.'' 
 
 Miri nodded once and patted the child's shoulder, `` Go, we'l be there in a bit.'' Then she grabbed the child's arm briefly. `` No heroics. This is n't like TV. They wo n't care that you're little. Hell, they'll want to grab you up first to recruit.'' 
 
 Fear lit the child's eyes before he started running. When he was out of earshot Miri started to bundle up her guitar. They were too tired to shlep amps and speakers, but she was n't going to let Them get her guitar. `` Alright you punks. You heard smallfry, We've got Vocoloids inbound.'' 
 
 Junpei managed to get his drum walked back onto a handcart. `` The Electronica is n't letting us have much breathing room are they?'' He wished the Pop-Alliance had n't knifed them in the back, but that was the thing... they were Metal and they were so very far from the frozen wastelands of the Brutal Land and its burning gates. 
 
 Yet here. This island that had been Japan. It had been his family's home since forever and he would not abandon it. Miri had been cast out of the NOrthlans and had taken in with his band as their Voice. 
 
 The baseline was felt before it could be heard. WOB WOB WOB WOB WOB. 
 
 They were out of time. Junpei looked around at his bandmates and saw that they could barely stand much less make Music. 
 
 WOB WOB WOB WOB WOB WOB WOB WOB. 
 
 Words were impossible as the screech of artifice shredded the air. He saw them. The Vocoloids all marched in unison. They were a desperate gambit that had drove the Youkai back, and so when the Nations formed the Electronica took hold the lands sundered by the Pop Wars. Ye tthey had been at peace. What changed? 
 
 Junpei listened as the beat started. Sound turning from raw overpressure, to music. He could feel it in the air ad earth and even in his blood. The Music called to him. Yet it was not His. His blood ran Metal no matter that his instrument was a traditional drum. He was the only one in his band that could have any make even a token resistance and the Vocoloids knew it. They never faultered or slowed asthey marched in lockstep. 
 
 THeir un-natural sound issued from their very bodies as they came at Junpei like a wave seeking to wash away a sandbar. He had no hope of opposing that unfaultering unceasing wall of bodies and sound 
 
 Instead he did the insane... and joined its rhythm... caught onto the rhythm and cadence of the beat and added his counter melody into it, weaving and twisting his drumbeat through so the very nature of the song itself changed. The artifice that promised Death and Fire twisted its meaning turning from his neighborhood and the fallen of his Band. The words, their fire, their death, their promise of Doom threaded through, channeled and harnessed by the giant drums he had libbed from the old Taiko club's storage when They came. 
 
 It was not the first time he had woven countermelody of centuries old Drum Song into his enemy's melody. Their song twisted, trying to integrate his melody and turn back to its purpose. 
 
 Junpei smiled as the song faultered. That was his opening. The point where his subordinate rythm could become the dominant beat. His arms burned with exaustion but his pace increased. He could not let up, would not, and so played on. 
 
 They wer eforced to choose between letting the song die and leave that ambient Magic for him to clame, or ride along and hope he would faulter. The Vocoloids, for all their simulated emotion and false humanity wer beings of logic and weighted calculations. 
 
 They played on, hoping to exaust the drummer in their way. Yet even as they played the tidal wave stopped, the sea stilled around the island of sand. 
 
 Junpei twisted the magic, took from it in ways that men did before itwas more than simply the primal call of Music to Men. 
 
 Slowly he renewed Slowly his band struggled to their feet. 
 
 Slowly they moved to position. 
 
 Then... then they moved with purpose. They moved to take over the beat and turn the Electronica from Primary to a small Backup to their defiant roar. Others joined in. A fusion of Pop and Metal, Synth and Jazz and Traditional in a wall of sound. 
 
 The Vocoloids faultered. Then fell. 
 
 Long had Junpei known the value not just in the human heart, but in looking past the borders of Genre and Land. He was not alone in this Fusion, but he was just the Drummer. who ever thought the Drummer was ever important? 
 
 He would be forgotten in the singing of this battle. The Bards would note him, if at all, as just another beat that joined in as Miri rallied against the impossible. 

