AN - I own nothing and please support the official release. I would love reviews and ideas on this story which is basically a re-imagining of my story titled My Life As Robbie

Everyone thought that the first of the gang that would get their faces in the paper would be Tori or Andre maybe even Jade. That's why it was a surprise when it was Robbie who got his face in the paper; it wasn't from landing a lead in a play or movie, nor for creating an album. No Robbie's face was plastered all over the front page of the LA post because of his crimes again the area. He had been stupid for making drugs to begin with, he was stupid for sampling his own product, and he was stupid for becoming addicted to it. Then when he accidentally discovered a less then legal way to increase the strength of the drug he became a real piece of work especially when that meant breaking into school after hours and accidentally starting a fire that nearly killed him and one of his best friends.

Standing at his locker Robbie set Rex in his own locker before looking through his own, as a Junior the appeal of Rex himself was growing thin but it allowed him an outlet without causing himself direct harm. Another plus was that he actually convinced Principal Helen to allow him to still have a second locker for Rex.

"I'm so proud of you Robbie, you grow up so fast. It was almost like it was yesterday when you were running around in your underwear in your Sponge Bob underpants," snickered Rex earning a weak smile from Robbie but a laugh from someone behind him. Spinning he saw Jade standing there looking over a large cup of steaming coffee watching him with piercing eyes. It was strange, usually Jade beat Robbie to school, so arriving first was a rare occasion in itself. Now she stood there watching him like a lioness watches her prey. Gulping he muttered something about a time out and closed Rex inside his locker. Quickly putting his science book inside of his bag he closed his own locker and turned to face her.

"Good morning Jade, how are you today?" he asked politely earning nothing but silence from Jade. "You know the more you sneak up and watch me the more I assume you like what you see." This earned a confusing smirk from Jade as she walked away leaving Robbie a confused mess. Yes she and Beck broke up a few weeks ago but her silence just made him more uneasy, his attend at wit had backfired at him again. Sighing he made his way towards science class to look over a few questions from homework before class started.

Hurrying over to one of the tables he set his books down and was going to start writing when he noticed a pearpod on the table next to him. Tapping it he was surprised to see it was paused on a man with a wad of cash in his hands. Hearing a thud he jerked back and looked around franticly before realizing it came from the other side of the table. Peeking over he saw Sinjin sleeping on the floor. After waking the young man up the boy told Robbie that he arrived really early and started catching up on his favorite TV show and must have dozed off and fallen off his chair.

"What show?" Robbie asked looking at the pearpod.

"Teaching Lies, except the Te is Tellurium and Li is lithium, you know from the periodic table?"

"Yeah but what is it about?"

"Oh," Sinjin said, "It's about this teacher who has a tumor and because he's dying he decides to teach a former student how to make drugs so that he could use half the money to support his family after he dies."

"Sounds interesting," Robbie mused.

"Yeah there are a lot of twists and surprises, but it comes on Sunday night and I need to be up early for school." Before he could continue the bell rang as the rest of the students filed in. As the teacher went on about the lesson Robbie began writing different ideas to check out the show and that drugs equal money. Of course Robbie had a hard enough time taking baby aspirin let alone any kind of hardcore drugs so maybe this wasn't going to work out for him. Then again, using his pearphone, he began looking up caffeine drinks and noticed that there wasn't really anything out there that would give you energy and not be addictive at the same time. There was a lot more research to do but he had a game plan and by the time the bell rang to show class was over he had planned out a name for his pill, 'Cistro'.

Lunchtime was less strained then normal but the rift could still be felt. It went Tori, Andre, Beck, Cat, Jade and then Robbie, sometimes Rex and even though the group talked like normal there were times when Jade would glare at Beck and everyone would go quiet. Today Cat was talking a mile a minute about something her brother had done over the weekend that landed him in Clown College. Andre, Beck and Tori were playing a new game on their phones called Wacky Race and really into it. Jade was listening to her music while picking at her salad and Robbie still wrote in his journal about the breakdown of Cistro. He found it easy and fun to look up and study chemical compounds, if acting didn't work out for him he could at least fall back on this.

"Cistro that your geeky superhero name?" Jade said tearing the journal from Robbie's hands to look it over; luckily he figured that advanced science wasn't Jade's forte. Unknown to Robbie Jade did know a thing or two about science but she had never seen strands like these before.

"No it's just my science homework," he said snagging it back and tucking it away. Looking at him skeptically she knew he was lying about something. Despite popular belief Jade did consider Robbie as a friend and she was a people watcher, being able to tell when something was off and right now his left eyebrow was twitching just a little. Knowing that tell was how she was able to beat him so often at poker, that and he often forgets how to play poker. For now though she'd let him go and continue to watch him, so she popped some gum into her mouth and rose to throw her garbage away and head to class just as the bell rang.

"How does she do that?" Cat asked and Robbie nodded, she was always perfectly on time. "I couldn't figure it out even when we dated," commented Beck as he put away his phone glumly, somehow from last place Tori had won again. "Internal clock," suggested Andre as he watched Tori do another victory dance. Once Jade was out of sight Robbie returned his gaze to Tori and Cat, there were two people who would never need his drug.

"ABC improve," said Sikowitz once everyone sat down in their seats, "We are hosting an acting talent show for the community and you are all allowed to participate however we will be needing judges. The winner gets one thousand dollars," the class cheered at this, "The judges get A's for the semester just an incentive to judge instead of act. Anyways the improve we are going to do will have Jade, Robbie and Beck as the judges and Cat, Henry and Tori, you be the contestants."

Taking seats behind a table Robbie instantly knew what he wanted to do and hoped the others would follow suit. First Cat came up smiling.

"Start with the letter U!"

"Umbrella-ella-ella-a-a-a," sang Cat.

"Very nice but this isn't a singing competition," said Beck.

"Wow, just wow," said Jade with a sneer, "Might look into modeling, don't need a high IQ for that." Before Cat could speak and get knocked out Henry came up,

"X-cuse me"

"Nice try but wrong Henry," called out Sikowitz, "Sit down."

"Yo yo yo dawg," said Robbie with a smile, "Yous need to calm down, her pipes are tight."

This earned a laugh from everyone in the room and got Cat to ease up. They managed to go around a few times with Tori getting out next at G, Beck at V and Cat at T. Soon it was only Jade and Robbie doing ABC banter back and forth to each other when the bell rang.

"Good job Jade I bet you have a real chance to win that one thousand," comment Robbie as he gathered his things.

"Thanks Shapiro, you too"

"Don't tease, you know I have no shot against you."

"You speak the truth puppet boy," she smiled showing teeth before leaving. On his way out Robbie took the position of judge number one.

Later that night he sat in his room with Rex on the bed watching TV. Blowing dust off the chemical set that his father got him for Hanukah he began to read the instructions and try to figure out the best way to separate the chemicals from the forms that they were currently in, pills he had picked up from the store on the way home and some caffeine pills he got from the gas station. As cartoons played in the background Robbie went to work spending hours and working through the night. Soon the cartoons faded to the next show, Teaching Lies.

The dream was a strange one since he never actually watched the show, only heard it while he slept but it helped him figure out what he was doing wrong. Before falling asleep all of his attempts either fizzled away or blew up in his face. With only a few tries left he tried to rest his eyes by removing his glasses and setting his head down. A few moments became complete sleep.

"Robert" came a voice behind him as someone shook him awake. Sitting up Robbie turned and saw a younger man standing behind him.

"Robert we need to get the newest batch out of here, the neighbor's reported the last explosion and the police might be here soon." Wiping his eyes free of the tiredness that was there his hand reached over to the unmarked bottle of pills but drew pause. "Come on Robert you're almost done," the man said reaching pass him and twisting to make the heat lowered, "Lower heat to make so the high comes through into the pill form, that's what you taught me remember?"

"Yeah that's it, that's why it blew up. The heat was too much and the energy was becoming too great and."

"Boom"

"Yeah Boom" Robbie agreed as he went back to work but they heard sirens in the distance. Taking that as their cue they snagged everything that was done and went to smashing the things that weren't. A few minutes later they were running and climbing through backyards of the people around them. Leaping over one fence Robbie stumbled and fell into a pool, the rush of freezing water jerked him up causing him to fall backwards and wake up for real. Scared he looked around the room and remembered what happened for real and in the dream and he tried to take into reality his dream and was happy to see it was working. Glancing at the clock he saw that it was almost four am so he sighed and looked at the pills in the cup he had. There were six of them and he had school in two hours. Despite his feelings that it would be a bad thing to get hooked on drugs he needed a test subject, yawning he felt his eyelids grow heavy and before he could reconsider he picked up a pill and swallowed it down. The effect was instant and that feeling of tiredness was gone, of course he felt his heat rate start up as if his heart was an engine and he just hit the Noz. Moving back to the table he continued to work and have twenty more pills by the time it was time for school. Showering, dressing and heading out the door he remembered the pills but forgot Rex.

Normally it took him twenty minutes to get to school on his bike but he went ahead and ran the whole way there, not even breaking a sweat. These pills were amazing and so far no real bad side effects, aside from a racing pulse and the awful powerful hunger that was coming on to him. Arriving at his locker he opened Rex's and looked through the puppet's secret stash of junk food. Someone clearing their throat from behind him got his to lift his head out, chewing on some licorice as his eyes fell upon Jade who had a large cup of coffee in her hand and a perplexed look on her face.

"Shapiro? What are you doing here so early?" she asked.

"Early? Am I early?"

"I relish these few moments of empty school before it fills up yet now I find you hear eating chips?"

"Yeah I'm just super hungry," he said swallowing, "I'll leave you alone if you want to enjoy quiet time." With that he left her still completely confused on why he was even here.

Lunch time he felt the night of little sleep start to hit which was good and bad. Good that the effects seem to last eight hours, bad that he was so tired. It didn't prevent sleep just pushed it down for eight hours. Which was amazing considering no other energy supplement did that without a crash. Head down on the table as the others came around him he forced himself up and looked at everyone there. Cat and Tori were looking through a magazine while Jade joined Beck and Andre in their video game and was apparently winning from the looks of his male friends. Turning around and leaning against the table he stifled a yawn as he looked across the courtyard. Most were eating but there was Courtney and Claire sitting at a table with their boyfriends, instead of chatting and eating they were studying. Seniors with midterms coming up this was an important time for them as they tried to get into their colleges of choice. When the bell rang he noticed the boys getting up but the girls staying. Taking a deep breath he said goodbye to the others and walked over to the table.

"Excuse me girls?" he asked timidly, "The bell rang"

Courtney glared at him but Claire looked at him with soft eyes.

"Free period, we take this time to study." She said.

"Are you two losing sleep over these things?"

"Sorry?" Claire said as Courtney slammed her pen down.

"Look nerd, we have boyfriends so spit it out or leave us alone."

"I've been up for over twenty four hours; I created a new energy pill. The only side effects are that your pulse gets a little fast a first and you get the munchies since it increases your metabolism."

They looked at him oddly.

"Are you trying to push drugs on us because I cannot." But Robbie cut her off.

"No not drugs, energy pills, all natural energy pulls. First one is free," he said holding out two pills.

"I am kind of tired," mused Claire and not taking her eyes off Robbie she took one and swallowed it down, despite Courtney's complaining.

"Well?" Courtney asked and Claire smiled.

"It feels like I can run a marathon easily now," she said and Courtney took the other one swallowing it.

"Lasts for eight hours and you'll return to the very state you are in now, so Claire you'll be a little tired but that's all."

"What do you want for these a date or something?" Courtney said.

"No, I need money so I want to sell these. I think it'll be handy once midterms and finals hit so I was hoping, if you like them, you could spread the word on the down low about these pills."

"What's your number?" Courtney asked and once she had it she said she would call him if she decided to. Smiling, thanking and walking away from them he didn't notice that the final bell had already rung and he would be late for class. He wasn't going to be the only one as Jade watched the entire thing go down.

In Sikowitz's class Jade was grumpier than ever. When asked what was wrong she told Andre that she got a detention for being late to class. Robbie found this odd since Jade was always on time but let it go until after school for he had detention as well, that visit with the girls made him late as well. Sitting in the almost empty classroom he tried to say hi to Jade as she took her seat, far away from him and put in her ear buds to listen to her music. Sighing Robbie went back to work writing about his new drug, being as tired as he was he fought falling asleep as well as taking another pill. Yes he was going to be the test subject for every new batch he created but he didn't want to become addicted to them, instead he pushed them to the bottom of his pocket and listened to music of his own.

On the way home Robbie was surprised to be stopped by a truck that pulled on the side of the road in front of him. Waiting and watching, ready to run if needed he watched as a guy got out of the car, anger in his eyes and Robbie recognized him as Courtney's boyfriend. Getting ready to run he was grabbed by the guy.

"What the hell did you give my girl?" he demanded choke holding Robbie who gasped.

"Energy pill," he barely got out.

"She had something to drink with me after school and started to throw up."

"Must react poorly to alcohol, I don't drink so I couldn't have known, is she okay?" Letting Robbie go he frowned.

"She's fine and told me everything; those pills seem to work well enough. I want some, I have to study for my history final and if I don't pass I can't get into Yale." Nodding Robbie pulled out the bag and handed over six pills.

"Only take one at a time, I haven't tested more than one and it seems to be enough." Nodded the guy opened his wallet and handed Robbie a hundred bucks and he gasped again.

"If it works it's worth more than that," the guy, Kyle said handing over a twenty as well. "Twenty bucks a pill, but I want a refund if I fail." He said his eyes glaring at Robbie who nodded. A few minutes later he was left alone with the money in his hands. Slipping it away he took out his notebook and wrote out that the pill reacted poorly with alcohol. Sighing he climbed onto his bike and headed home, with midterms in a week he might be able to make a lot of money really soon and the thought of everything he could buy made the ride a lot easier.