Home, sweet home

Xavier & Raji listened as they hear James play some more music from the band Metallica. Raji smiled as she soon began to think about her original home, Wakanda. After this tournament, she plans on taking a vacation there, to see her older brother. <=3

James, having played a bit of Enter Sandman, now sthought of playing something more difficult.
Salma said: "I'm not really into all this metal stuff, but it was very nice. Can you play something Latin?"
"After this one. I've been pacticing it for almost 3 weeks until I managed to play it."
(1:55 - 2:46)
Pantera formed around the same time as Metallica, so he met all the members of that band in person. Him and the lead guitarist, 'Dimebag' Darrell Abbot got along very well, and he thought of him for playing. He had a lot of respect for his unique guitar playing style, and he was Zakk's childhood friend as well.

As she listened to James play, Raji turned to Salma to strike another conversation while listening to the music, "Hey, you remember asking me about my family? Well, I fogot to mention I have a cousin & a brother, too. He's the current king of Wakanda now." she says with a smile.

Having played the solo, he answered to Salma: "OK, not a song that I can think off, but I do know a little bit of Santana guitar style." He then started to lighten the tone on his guitar and began to play, trying to remember the style at the same time.

"Oh?" smiled Salma, when Raji spoke of her family, namely, her brother and cousin. "That's nice. How old are they?"

"Hmmm, I don't remember, but I know my brother is older than me. He's known as the Black Panther in his land." ;3 Raji says to Salma.Xavier smiled as he listened to more of his guitar playing.

As James finished his Santana-styled doodle, he hears that Salma and Raji mentioned something. Not knowing what they were xactly talking about, he looked over and asked: "Who's got a black panther?" He could hear these two twords clearly, yet he didn't know the subject of their talking.
"No, it's her cousin. His nickname is the Black Panther." replied Salma. "By the way, which song were you playing?"
James replied: "It wasn't a song, it was just a quick style lick."

O.O "He's my brother, not my cousin." X3 Raji says to Salma to correct her, "My cousin is a woman." she says again before hearing James.

"Oh yeah! Silly me." giggled Salma, then heard that her cousin is actually a woman.
Then, something crossed James's mind - as a child, he loved big cats, especially lions, and couldn't hlp asking Raji about those, since she is a native African. He asked: "Hay Raj, did you ever see a live lion in Wakanda?"

"Oh yes. Wakanda has its own African animal reserve & it has lions in it." Raji says, "Heck T'Challe, my brother, has a royal pet black panther named Bagheera." she says again. =3

James smiled.
Salma then looked at James and said: "You know what? James loks a bit like a lion, doesn't he?" she then giggled.
James, hearing this, looked at himself in the mirror, and he thought that he did resemble a lion, but he said: "Yeah, like the cowardly lion from 'The Wizard of Ozz', he he."
Salma laughed: "Exactly!"
"By the way, I'm a Leo in zodiac." he then stated.
"Oh really?" replied Salma: "I'm a Virgo."
James added: "Well, I never rerally got a long with Virgos. They're too... fussy and criticizing. No offense to you, of course." he smiled. "Oh, and I write songs for JFC too. Here are two." he played the first on a TV that was in the room. "This is probably gonna be a scoreboard or match summary kind of theme song."

"Oh nice." =3 Raji says as she listened to the song played, & recognized it, too.

(ignore all the vocals)
"Here's another one. This is probably going to be a titles theme." said James.
Salma saw a photo of James on the wall when he was young: "Who's this?"
James walked over: "Oh, that's me. I broke my wrist then, when I fell off my skateboard."

Raji looked over at the pic of young James as she listened to the music, impressed that he does songs for JFC. =3
Xavier chuckled to himself as he stayed where he was, seeing the young people talk about music & such.

James then thought of something else to show - his other guitars. Laying the guitar he was playing down, he suggested: "Hay guys, wanna see the rest of the Het's stuff?"

"Sure." =3 Raji says to James with a nod.
"I don't see any problem in that, very well. Lead the way." Xavier says with a wink.

James smiled, then lead Raji, Salma and Charles into his guitar room - 23 more guitars either hanging on the wall or lying on a small stand. "So, what do you think? Don't touch 'em, I cleaned them yesterday."
Gallery here!

Both Raji & Xavier looked on as they saw all the guitars. "Wiw, pretty neat guitars you got here." =3 Raji says.

"Yeah, thanks." said James, looking at one guitar in particular - his 'MORE BEER' Gibson Explorer, which was hanging on the wall, his first tour guitar. He took it off and then showed it to the others: "This is my first one. I got it in 1982 on a small auction I went to. I put this 'MORE BEER' sticker on when we were on the Damage Justice tour."
Salma looked around, and asked: "You have a guitar with 12 strings?"
"Oh yeah." nodded James: "It's pretty new too, I bought that one for the Black Album record that we did a year ago."

"Cool." Raji says with an impressed smile as she hears James. =3

James walked over to Salma: "Thing about twelve-strings is that that 2 strings make 1 course, so 6 courses, which produces a richer, more ringing tone than a standard six-string. Essentially, it is a type of guitar with a natural chorus effect due to the subtle differences in the frequencies produced by each of the two strings on each course." he explained.
"So, it doubles the sound of one string no a six-string guitar?" asked Salma.
"Yup." confimed James. Then, the metalhead continued: "And it's a good thing that Mickey Rourke, who founded JFC was a metalhead, otherwise we'd have some rappers writing songs here..."

"Ugh, I was never a rap fan, myself." >3< Raji says to James & Salma as she listened to them.

"Yuck. Me neither." added Salma: "But I love Latin music."
"...and the band that actually plays the music is called Trivium. They're pretty young. Matt the singer is only 18." concluded James, then remembered someone from his highschool days: a girl he used to date lon ago: Wanda. Now that he's reunited with Raji, he asked: "Hay Raj? Have you heard from anyone else from our school. Have you heard from Wanda?"

"Last time I've heard from Wanda, she was working at her father's island in the Indian Ocean." =/ Raji says.
Charles looks on, knowing exactlly what Raji is talking about. The same island that his once good friend, Eric Mendes, known now as "Magnus" owned a big island in the Indian Ocean, the island known as Genosha. <=/

Salma listened to the other three discuss about a woman named Wanda, and asked: "And who's she?"
"Oh, she was my girlfriend at college." replied James: "We dated until she went to that island Raji mentioned. It happened some time after Curt Von Doom's accident - he asked me to visit his lab with a friend of ours called Jason Richards, I think. And then, something caught fire and the two of us could escape, but Curt was trapped inside. Everybody thought he was killed, but I saw him on the tournaments more than once. He's got a big T-Rex, a Spino and a Carnotaur."

Raji hears Von Doom's name & remembers the story of the college accident when the lab caught on fire & exploded. But soon, she remembers something, Von Doom was at the tournament yesterday.
 She then hears about Jason, so to keep the villainous storyies of Von Doom out of the conversation, she says, "I remember Richards. I hear he's married now." =3 she says.