The Black Parade has supposedly perished in New Mexico, 2007. They had said the flames scorched the very earth with hellfire, that no one survived.

Now, his Grand Immortal Dictator had brought them back, someway, somehow, and returned them to the location of their untimely demise. Some said they came back different. With no souls, with lifeless eyes. Others said they had been held captive in fear of the power they had gained over rhe populace through their music.

It was all speculation.

However, you knew better. This was all part of the plan for the Concrete Age.

At the final moment of the fire, you slipped away, your Black Parade Jacket and a single guitar string being the only reminder you were ever there.

Gerard was different, indeed. Yet he was still the same in a way. From the shadows, under the guise of a soldier of His Grand Immortal Dictator, you watched him climb the ranks until he was his right hand. The heir to the throne, so to say. He had a feeling you were still there, as everyone else was. He knew why you left, and he didn't blame you.

You were considered the least important of the band, just the backing vocalist and third guitarist, in charge of the haunting riffs and pickscrapes faded into the background. You were the one choking before the second verse of The Sharpest Lives. Gerard knew you all too well, your time would come one day. You just needed to observe before you took your place in the new age.

Mikey had truly died and been resurrected, Frank had succumbed to his vampiric blood, Ray had become a general... and Bob had truly fled, later suffocating inside his own home years later.

And you. More vampiric than ever, golden eyes hidden beneath black bangs.

However, as his Grand Immortal Dictator has commanded, The Black Parade was to return to Mexico for what was to be the resurgence show.

The first to meet were you and Gerard. Still in the estate of Drag, he looked up from beneath his sunglasses as you entered the room, no longer in your uniform. You wore your burnt and tattered Black Parade Jacket.

He swore his breath caught in his throat beneath his dignified stance. You two were friends. You always had been, perhaps closer than you should have been. And now, all those emotions were crashing down.

"Its been some time, hasn't it?" He said quietly, crossing one leg over the other. He couldn't wait to be the person he used to be when he finally set foot back on that stage. But for now, within the kingdom of DRAG, he was still the right hand to the czar. Untouchable, dignified, orderly.