Author's Note: So I have probably five zillion other stories that could use my attention right now, but instead I'm starting yet another new project. This one started off as a prologue for another Camp Rock story I have in the works (also Tess-centric), then became a one-shot, that turned into more of a drabble, until I finally realized it was too long for that and made into a chapter story. There won't be too many chapters, though - I have most of the story already planned out, and there definitely won't be more than like six or seven chapters.

I loved Camp Rock 2, but I kind of hate that they totally shoved Tess aside. Actually, I had a lot of complaints about what they did with Tess - which is how this story was born. Essentially, it's Camp Rock 2 from Tess's side of the story, with a few scenes that were never in the movie that I've added for the sake of a plot. (So it's drastically AU, of course, because we don't know what "really" happened.)

There's one more major thing I've added that wasn't there in the movie, but I'll wait and explain that after the next chapter.

Enjoy!

Prologue

Camp Star really is nothing like Camp Rock.

Camp Rock was sunshine and warmth. Old wooden cabins with actual bunk beds, a mess hall with a buffet line and plastic trays, typical camp activities like arts and crafts and boating, movie nights and campfires and sing-alongs. The grounds looked like something out of an old movie about summer camp. There was emphasis on music and singing and being a star, of course, but overall, the Camp Rock experience was about having fun, being with friends, doing something you love, enjoying summer. Hollywood, fame, stardom… those could come or they could not, and no one would be all that upset about it. They all dreamt of stardom, but for most, all it would ever be was that – a dream.

Camp Star, on the other hand, was all glitter and glamour. Cabins that looked more like miniature hotels, a so-called mess hall that's really a gourmet restaurant, facilities that would rival Hollywood recording studios. It's all juxtaposed against the woods and mountains and trees and lake, looking almost painfully out of place. This was the place for serious performers – the ones who would do anything for a chance at fame and fortune and the bright lights of the paparazzi flashing. No price was too high if the end result was superstardom, because they know that it's not just a wish or a dream or a hope of someday – it's an inevitability.

Tess Tyler is Camp Star. Hollywood is in her blood; glitter dust runs through her veins, sparkling like the star she knows she will become. When Axel announces that there are open spots, her cell phone is in her hand and her neatly manicured fingers dialing her mother's number before he even mentions the air-conditioning in the cabins. Never once does it occur to her that by making the switch, she'll be leaving the only place that she's ever really called home, the only friends that were ever really her friends, essentially trading them up for a glitzier version.

That's how they see her, she knows, now that she's on the other side of the lake. Like a spoiled child, abandoning her old toys the minute something shiny and new is dangled in front of her face. How could Tess do this to us? she knows they'll say, gossiping about her over lunch. But it doesn't matter what they say, because they don't matter anymore. She has traded up, traded up a summer spent wasting her time with amateurs and little-kid games for the chance to further her talent and make connections at a place full of stars in the making, just like her.

Tess Tyler is Camp Star, through and through.

But late that first night, lying in her new plush bed in a cabin that's more like a five-star hotel room, she realizes just what she's given up, and wonders if maybe this was a mistake.

(She'll never admit to this, but that nagging suspicion, that lingering doubt, stays with her the whole summer.)