“We Were Never Meant to Win” – How GEAR GIRLS Turned Rejection Into Revolution
By Shanna Vex, LoF Underground Culture
NOTE TO READER: Here at Life of Fiction, there’s more going on than what you see in print. Thousands of lives, intertwined and beating with hearts as courageous and oftentimes as wounded as your own. This is one such example.
Stand Anyway (Lyrics)
Ohhhh, Oh oooo,
They never saw me coming—
Guess they never looked.
Quiet hearts…
…yes, we matter…
I’ve walked behind the thunder,
They watched the stars.
Not built to shine for others—
I bear the scars.
Don’t fight for medals,
You don’t need a name or fame.
Some wars aren’t meant for glory—
Some fights are worth the pain.
So I stand—
When silence tells me to kneel.
I rise—
Though no one knows how it feels.
Some fights are lost before they begin...
But I stand there anyway—
Because it’s right... not to win.
I’ve been the shadow in the background,
Watching…
Waiting…
The gear that never stuck.
I'll hold the line in silence,
When others give it up.
So I stand—
When silence tells me to kneel.
I rise—
Though no one knows how it feels.
Some fights are lost before they begin...
But I stand there anyway—
Because it’s right... not to win.
You don’t need to see me—
I’m not here for praise.
You can lie to yourself,
When your lost in life's maze.
We all fall,
…yes…
But some fall forward...
So I stand—
When silence tells me to kneel.
I rise—
Though no one knows how it feels.
Some fights are lost before they begin...
But I stand there anyway—
Because it’s right... not to win.
Stand anyway...
When no one knows your name.
Stand anyway...
When no one sees your pain.
Right... is still right...
The valiant will remain.
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Before they were thunder on stage, they were silence in the pit.
Before Ezra, Juno, and Katt became Gear Girls, they were invisible—technicians, cadets, factory ghosts of the Clockworks underground. Bystanders in the glamorized bloodsport of the Trench Wars, a corporate spectacle where polished SLAG pilots flew high, and everyone else… watched from below.
But then came the crash.
“We called it the Disbandment, but really—it was a culling,” says Ezra Volek, lead singer and synth provocateur.
“Pilots without ratings? Scrapped. Teams without sponsors?
Ghosted.
No one cared how much tech we built, how many shifts we pulled, or how much we bled behind the curtain.
We were never the story.
So we made our own.”
Born in the Scraps ⚙️
The Trench War Entertainment Disbandment Crisis wasn’t just about losing entertainment value—it was a cultural fracture. When private factions pulled out, they didn’t just abandon pilots.
They dismantled hope.
Juno Caellum, the band’s bassist and structural harmonist, remembers it bitterly.
“I watched five cadets break down in the same week—told their contracts were canceled mid-training. One of them overdosed in a mech bay. No coverage. No funeral. Just another off-grid incident in the system.”
That same week, Ezra, Juno, and Katt Merrow met in a weapons disposal dock.
Not to protest.
To build something else.
“It started with Juno thumping on an oil drum and Katt rerouting speaker loops through SLAG cores,” Ezra laughs. “I was screaming lyrics from some angry poem I wrote at 3 AM. And we looked at each other like—wait... this is working.”
No Stage? No Problem. 🔧
With zero backing and outlaw status in multiple sectors, Gear Girls began rigging their own shows in the lowest Districts of Clockworks City.
Abandoned hangars. Cargo elevators. Tunnel junctions.
Anywhere with power lines and shadow.
They crafted their rigs from scrap: lights from mining bots, mics from broken pilot headsets, amps soldered from retired SLAG cores.
Their sound? A Frankenstein fusion of industrial tension, blues roots, and funk-infused rock strut.
The first viral track—“Flesh Wires”—was recorded on a repurposed security cam. The video shows Ezra howling into a stripped transmission dish, Juno hammering bass from a piston rod, and Katt triggering feedback loops from exposed drone wires.
The song hit 7 million undernet plays in three days.
“We didn’t make music to get attention,” says Katt, “we made it to scream in the face of silence.”
Not Here to Win—Here to Stand 🧨
The more they played, the more they discovered their sound, which grew in range. Before long, their fans branded the bands genre as: Funk-Infused Rock / Alt-Rock / Electro-Blues. What sets Gear Girls apart isn’t just their sound…it’s their soul. Their lyrics hit where it hurts:
“Stand Anyway” became an anthem for disbanded pilots, anti-faction gnomes, and defectors across Pävärios.
“Neon Doesn’t Heal” calls out the glamorization of mech violence.
“No Applause Zone” is a haunting ballad sung from the POV of a SLAG technician who dies mid-match.
And yet—Gear Girls doesn’t preach. They pulse. They move bodies before they move minds.
That’s the hook.
“We’re not trying to win over the system,” Ezra shrugs. “We’re building a new frequency.”
Why They Matter in the Life of Fiction 💥
Gear Girls aren’t just background noise in the Life of Fiction universe—they’re the unofficial voice of resistance. Where others chase fame or factions, they chase truth. Whether through aether leaks, secret shows, or soundtrack syncs to key rebel ops (you didn’t hear that from us), their music spreads in whispers and bootlegs.
They’re the rhythm under your protest.
The echo in your climb.
The song you sing when no one’s watching.
“They told us we weren’t built to fly,” Juno once said before a blackout set.
“So we built something louder.”
Band Members 🎸
Ezra "Spark" Volek – Lead Vocals, Synth FX
Role: The voice. The fire.
Background: Former engineering student turned whistleblower after exposing a rigged pilot training sim in Sector Nine.
Style: Raven locks, copper goggles, black jumpsuit with repurposed Trench tech symbols.
Personality: Unfiltered. Obsessed with truth. Emotionally precise on the mic.
Signature: Vocal break into spoken-word truthbombs mid-chorus.
“You don’t need a rank to speak out. You just need guts and a mic.”
Juno Caellum – Bass, Harmony Vocals, Structural Comms
Role: Groove architect, emotional anchor
Background: Raised in the dock levels, Juno built her first guitar out of melted gear teeth and a cracked hydraulic rod. Former courier for black market resistance comms.
Style: Redheaded mop, steel-toed boots, glowing tattoos (inked with discarded circuit dyes).
Personality: Quiet, centered, fiercely loyal. Always watches first, plays second.
Signature: Basslines that speak louder than words.
“Music is resistance. I don’t talk much—but when I play, you’ll feel it.”
Katt "Spindle" Merrow – Lead Guitar, Vocals, Sound Design
Role: Technical wizard, mood shapeshifter
Background: Trench War dropout. Left the academy after refusing to endorse a corrupt SLAG tech patent. Built most of the band’s soundboard from torn-down drone cores.
Style: Tinted visor, asymmetrical jacket, always barefoot on-stage for “tactile grounding.”
Personality: Quirky, brilliant, rides the line between cosmic and sarcastic.
Signature: Improvisational solos during live shows, often bending melodies into SLAG-sim waveforms.
“You don’t break out by following the manual. You melt it and remix it.”
The Name: “GEAR GIRLS”
Originally a slur hurled at them for being "grease monkeys" who "should stick to fixing toys," they reclaimed it with pride. Their emblem—a gear with one broken tooth—symbolizes persistence through damage.
Band Philosophy
Gear Girls isn’t just about sound—it’s resistance through rhythm. Their songs speak to the discarded, the silenced, the overlooked. Each track is a statement. Each show is a strike.
They don’t aim to win charts. They aim to move hearts and crack false systems—one riff at a time.
Want more on Gear Girls? Stream their newest release “Stand Anyway” or grab a blacklisted sticker pack from any side vendor brave enough to stock them. For those in upper-floor sectors: Ask your echo market dealer for ‘Rust Rhythms – Tape 3’ (codeword: sprocket blues).
Hmmmm, stats rising faster than usual on this one....
Your creativity never fails to amaze me!