Victorious FF 5 – "Islanders"

"Chapter 1: Fury of the Storm"

A/N: Hey everyone. New story. Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, etc. etc. - Enjoy your stay, and please review.

"…You…You're kidding. …Right?" Jade asks Tori, who is beaming in uncompressed joy, parading around the halls handing out flyers for her upcoming job.

"No-ope!" Tori drags out the 'O', much too Jade's annoyance. They stop in front of Tori's locker; Tori deposits the remaining flyers inside, and grabs her books for first and second period.

"So living people…" Jade starts.

"Yes…" Tori simply responds.

"With properly working ears…?"

"Uh huh…"

"Are going to pay…"

"Yeah…"

"To see you…"

"mmmhmm…" Tori starts to smile in glee.

"Sing?" Jade finishes.

"Aaaaand?" Tori continues to beam.

"…On a cruise ship."

"Isn't it great!?" Tori starts to jump up and down, excitedly poking Jade on the side of her arm.

"Don't touch me!" Jade hisses, smacking Tori's hand away. She continues to jump up and down, but isn't stupid enough to challenge Jade's words.

Why of all people, would they choose Vega to sing on a luxury cruise liner, Jade wonders? People are there to relax, not to be tortured. I mean…I didn't apply for the job, but could they not have gotten any better than…stupid…annoying…ugh. Is she still talking?

André, Beck, and Robbie walk up to the scene.

"Hey girls," Beck says passively, waving a hand up.

"Uhh…What's up with her?" André points with his thumb over to the bouncing girl, shifting sight between the group.

"Princess over here got a gig on a week-long cruise to sing. She's been spazzing around the halls all morning handing out stupid flyers." Jade says with crossed arms, eyebrows stabbing downwards into the bridge of her nose.

"…I wasn't spazzing." Tori pouts, furrowing her brow. "And they're not stupid." Tori continues, handing a flyer to each of the guys. The flyer includes a picture of the cruise ship, a list of it's stops, and in the bottom right hand corner in small dark magenta letters "Featuring musical entertainment by up-and-coming superstar, Tori Vega!"

A collection of "Congratulations" are given to the girl, from everyone except for Jade.

"Pfft. Up-and-Coming superstar, my ass." Jade says to herself, rolling her eyes – her arms still crossed, trying to pay as little attention to the glory-hog as possible.

"Aaand the best part. I can bring up to five of my closest friends and family for free." Tori mentions. Jade's attention is quickly drawn back, as Tori pulls five tickets from the front pocket of her dark brown bag.

"My parents are out of town, and there's no chance I'm bringing Trina." Tori shudders, thinking of the awful displeasure of sharing a cabin with her sister.

"So…I'll be giving the tickets to my closest of close friends." Tori says, as she starts to hand the tickets out amongst the group.

"One for André." Tori hands André the first ticket.

"One for Beck."

"One for Robbie."

"And this one is for Cat, though I haven't seen her yet this morning, so I'll just set it aside for now."

"Hmm…Am I missing anyone?" Tori asks the group, waving the last ticket around in the air, placing her other hand on her cheek in false-thought.

Jade glares directly at Tori, her eyes piercing the air like jet-propelled daggers…on fire. A crawling chill slithers up Tori's spine, but she continues her spiel, nonetheless. Tori slowly walks around the guys and to the side of Jade, swinging the ticket back and forth in front of Jade's face. She walks a full circle around Jade and continues the harassment.

"Awh, does little Jadey want a ticket to go on a LUXURIOUS cruise, where she would enjoy a nice relaxing week doing absolutely nothing."

"Vega…" Jade gritted her teeth, holding back a rage so severe she would probably have to be wrapped up in multiple strait-jackets if she were to attempt any of the ideas flowing through her mind.

"The ticket can be yours if you do three simple, itsy-bitsy things." Tori continued to wave the ticket in front of the Goth girl's face.

"…What…?" Her anger still being suppressed, the blood being drained from the locked fingers of her death-clenched fists.

"Well, all you have to do is give me a compliment, a hug, and…." Tori smiles.

"….And?" Jade asks questioningly – the tips of her fingers beginning to turn much whiter than usual.

"You have to come to each one of my shows on the trip. One each night for the entire week." A smug look appears on Tori's face, knowing it would kill Jade, as well as give an opportunity for them to become closer as friends.

"Aaaaaaugh." Jade belts out. Her arms swing upward, clutching the back of her head – as if someone had just shot her. She would have most likely enjoyed the bullet more than what she had just heard. Her eyes look around the group; all of them giving her a look of anticipation. The boys are engulfed in interest.

"Ugh…Fine." Jade spits, snatching the ticket out of Tori's hand in a quick single motion. "But don't expect me to like it. Oh, and I'll boo. I'll be the worst heckler you'll EVER meet." Jade storms off into the crowd of students as the sound of the bell for first period floods the halls.

Tori closes her locker, and starts heading in the direction of Sikowitz's room. She realizes that she still hasn't seen cat yet.

"Hey guys, have any of you seen Cat this morning?" – The boys nod their heads no, and a familiar high-pitched laugh can be heard making it's way around the corridor by Robbie and Jade's lockers.

"Heh, heheh, heheheheh" Cat bounces around the corner, wearing her long-lost moonboots. The redhead continues down the hall in the direction of the group, but disregards their presence, as she bounces right past them and into the next hallway.

Stopped frozen in their tracks, the rest of group squint their eyes in confusion as the laughs slowly fade down the next corridor.

"That girl's got issues." André declares – and they continue to make their way to Sikowitz's.

A week passes by – it's finally the day of departure. Cat was finally caught up to a few days before to be given her ticket.

"Let's just hope she doesn't moonbounce her way off the side of the ship," Jade says, with a wicked smile directed towards the exuberant redhead.

"HA!" blurts out Rex from inside one of Robbie's suitcases.

Jade leans into the black suitcase in Robbie's hand holding the puppet, and whispers a few words.

"If she does, I'll make sure to tie a rope to a certain puppet's legs and throw it overboard for something Cat can hold onto."

"Man woman, you're evil!" Rex shouts.

Jade is pleased with his reaction and returns back standing, with her signature smirk intact.

The loud annoying boat horn bellows, and the ship starts to set sail. A week of pure comfort, relaxation, and a free comedy act each night is about to begin, Jade thinks.

The group decides to check out the ship – see what kind of awesome things they have to do. Their first stop is the dining section. They have everything from a fast-food food court to a BF Wang's.

"You want to pick up some burgers or something?" Beck asks the rest of the group – his eyes uncontrollably rest upon a certain chestnut-haired girl. Before he gets too in trance, Jade interjects.

"Ugh no, those are just tragedies on buns. If you want real meat we can go to the Strip House."

Beck's, André's, and Robbie's eyebrows fly up in the air, and their mouths somewhat drop at the girl's comment. Jade notices this, and rolls her eyes.

"It's a steakhouse, morons." Emphasizing her point by rolling her eyes for a second time.

The guys let out a chuckle, and start to rub the backs of their necks. Without having anything to say they just follow her without any more say in the matter. Tori and Cat follow as well.

The group sits down at the restaurant and start looking through the menu. They discuss what they want, and Jade makes sure that someone watches Robbie to make sure he doesn't order something outrageous to raise the bill.

They order, eat their meal, share some laughs at jokes, share some laughs at Robbie's child cup of chocolate milk with a glittery blue silly straw, and his specially requested kids coloring page.

"Don't worry, I got the check you guys." Tori speaks up, reaching into her bag, pulling out a special employee cruise card, filled with tons of meal vouchers.

"Wow, that's cool, you-" Beck starts but is quickly interrupted.

"Yeah, real great, let's go." Jade butts in, dropping her napkin on the table, standing up from her chair. Beck sighs at Jade's grunchy mood, but follows anyways. André, Robbie, and Cat get up as well, Tori following as soon as the waiter returns her card.

Next stop on the list of awesome things to do is to check out their rooms.

"Alright, let's see here. I believe they said we will each share a room with one other person. My key number is 594." Tori announces as they walk down the 500 hallway.

"Right here." Beck smiles, and holds up his key that has 594 boldly written across it.

"Ooohh," Jade remarks in her deep voice. She gives Beck an evil eye and raises her eyebrow. Tori quickly wraps her arm around Beck's, and retreats inside of the room, rushing the door closed before Jade could stop her.

"Vega…" Jade once again grits the girl's name. It's as if she wanted to have horrible things done to her while she was sleeping.

André, trying to break the tension, announces his room number as well.

"I got room 595, which one of you lucky ladies are my roommate, heh."

Robbie looks irritated at the comment, but just shrugs it off.

"OOH! ME! ME!" Cat shouts waving her key in a blur high in the air.

"This is gonna be so much fun! We can do each other's nails. OOH! And hair! Yaay." Cat just looks off into space imagining her version of a sleepover on a cruise ship. André looks up, with a face similar to the one Robbie just had a few seconds before.

"Why?" André pouts to the air. Cat drags André into the room, just as fast as Tori did Beck, if not faster.

That just leaves two members of the gang in the hallway, standing in front of door 596. Robbie turns around to face the girl, to be met with a disgusting, sour look painted across her face.

"I-" Robbie tries to speak. The girl quickly cuts him off to present her ever so prominent dominance over him.

"Listen to me Shapiro. I don't want to be in a room with you, but I guess there is no choice in the matter. There will be rules. First off, if I am sleeping, and you wake me up I will do VERY bad things to you. Second, you will wear pants at all times. Not even when you are sleeping are you allowed to remove them. Thirdly, if I hear one peep out of your stupid puppet, he is going straight out the damn window. Do you understand me?"

"But-" Robbie tries to speak up again.

"DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?"

Robbie squeaks and nods his head.

"Good." Jade finishes, and stomps into her new personal week-long hell. Robbie picks up his suitcases, and follows.

The rooms are decently large, but nothing like first class large. Each of the rooms contains two separate beds, placed next to each other with a single night stand with a lamp separating them. Each room also contains two medium-sized wooden wardrobes, a 30 inch flat screen TV, and a bathroom with a shower. On the far side of the room was a window, about the size of the TV which overlooked the side of the ship.

Robbie and Jade unpacked their stuff; Jade still masked the sour look. A knock on the door was heard – Robbie opened it up, and the group outside waited for them to get going to their next stop on the cruise ship.

"Awh look at the two love birds, sharing this marvelous room on a romantic cruise ship." Tori joked. Jade swiftly, in a single move, appeared behind Tori, and held her arm around the front of the girl's neck.

"Don't push me Vega." Jade spits out, releasing Tori from her grip. Tori rubs her neck, as they leave the room.

The six of them head down to the entertainment deck. This floor has an indoor golf course, several pools with water slides, a gym, an arcade, and a central stage, viewable by all of the rooms. Each of the rooms had a glass wall along the back which overlooked the stage.

They decided to check out the arcade first, followed by the pool. They spent pretty much the whole rest of the afternoon there before leaving to get ready for the show. The pairs went back to their rooms to get changed.

Jade and Robbie took turns in the bathroom to get changed. It took longer than usual, as they argued for a while, on the subject of Robbie changing his pants. Jade wanted him to find a way to change pants, without having him not wearing pants at any giving time. After the argument, the girl ended up allowing for a quick five second carry-over grace period. Any faster, and the ship might have to hire him as a quick-change act. They meet back up with the group, Beck and André patting Robbie on the back, giving their condolences about his living situation.

They arrive twenty minutes before show time – at about 8:40. Tori goes backstage, and finishes up with last minute details, and the rest of the group take their seats in the audience. Tori goes on at about 9:30pm, does her set of four songs, then gives the stage up to the next performer – who is, ironically enough, a quick-change act. Once Tori is finished, Jade stomps out of the theatre, and back to the room, though the rest of the group stays to enjoy the rest of the show.

The show ends a bit after ten. Everyone is tired from their long, adventure filled first day at sea – so they head back to their cabins for a well-deserved rest. They wave each other a goodnight, and enter the rooms. Robbie sighs before opening his doors, not knowing what to expect when he enters.

He slowly pushes the door open, to be met with a dark room, only a little light from the bathroom illuminated in the darkness. The bathroom light was on, and the door was cracked to only let a little light out. Robbie smiles at the fact Jade left the light on so he wouldn't trip or hurt himself trying to stumble through the dark room.

Robbie looks over to Jade's sleeping form with soft eyes. Even though she can be a major grunch sometimes – well most of the times – She does have a thoughtful side. He quietly grabs some pajamas from the wardrobe next to his bed, and slips into the bathroom. He closes the door and starts to get changed. Just as he is about to change out of his pants he could hear Jade yell from the other room,

"FIVE SECONDS."

Robbie smiles, quickly changes, and slips back into the main room – turning the bathroom light off behind him. He gets under the covers of the large, comfortable bed, and starts to close his eyes.

Just as fast as he drifted off to sleep, his eyes slammed open, and he shot up to a sitting position, at the sound of crackling thunder, outside of his window. A bright flash of lightning illuminated the room for a brief second. Trying to ignore the storm – something Robbie has been terrified of since he was little – he laid back down. His eyes, however, would not shut – he just laid there, blankets covering everything but his eyes, watching the heavy rain smash against the window.

Hope you enjoyed and had some laughs. Thanks for reading!

-V