All rights to Schneider, Nickelodeon and Meyer.

Chapter 1 - First Sight

Finding the school wasn't difficult, though she'd never been there before. The school was, like most other things, located in a densely populated area. At first glance it didn't even look like a school; only the sign, which declared it to be the Hollywood Arts with a tagline that read: "High School for the Talented", that made her stop. It looked like a large building surrounded by smaller ones, built with cream-colored bricks. There were so many trees and shrubs the brunette couldn't see its size at first.

Tori parked in front of the first building, which had a small sign over the door reading "Directory". No one else was parked there, so she was sure it was off limits, but she decided she would get directions inside instead of circling around in like an idiot. Tori stepped nervously out of the cool Mustang and walked down a little stone path lined with dark hedges. She paused taking a deep breath before opening the door.

Inside, it was brightly lit, and extremely colorful. She rolled her eyes at the obviousness of it. It's an arts school. In Hollywood no less! The office was small; a little waiting area with padded chairs, blue-flecked commercial carpet, notices and awards cluttering the walls, a big clock ticking loudly. The room was cut in half by a long counter, cluttered with wire baskets full of papers and brightly colored flyers taped to its front. There were three desks behind the counter, one of which was manned by a large, red-haired woman wearing glasses.

The red-haired woman looked up. "Can I help you?"

"I'm Victoria Vega," Tori informed her, and saw the immediate awareness light her eyes. She was expected, a topic of gossip no doubt. After winning an entrance into the prestigious school with her singing at the Black Box Theatre, Tori knew that she was going to be a hot topic on the tongues of many people for a long while.

"Of course," the ginger said. She dug through a precariously stacked pile of documents on her desk till she found the ones she was looking for.

"I have your schedule right here, and a map of the school." She brought several sheets to the counter to show roe. She went through Tori's classes for her, highlighting the best route to each on the map, and giving her a slip to have each teacher sign, which she was to bring back at the end of the day. She smiled at the brunette and hoped, like her parents, that she would like it here in Hollywood Arts. Tori smiled back as convincingly as she could.

When Tori went back out to her car, other students were starting to arrive. She drove around the school, following the line of traffic. She was glad to see that most of the cars were older like hers, nothing flashy. Which meant that the people who go to the school weren't snobbish rich kids but that thought slowly died down when she noticed a few expensive looking cars pull up into the lot; one of them being a shiny Camaro, and it stood out.

Tori looked at the map in the Mustang, trying to memorize it now; hopefully she wouldn't have to walk around with it stuck in front of her nose all day. She stuffed everything in her bag, slung the strap over her shoulder, and sucked in a huge breath. I can do this, she told herself feebly. No one was going to bite me. She finally exhaled and stepped out of the blue 2002 Mustang.

After getting through the parking lot, she entered the largest building that held a sign over its heavy red doors, with the words: "Main Building". The hallways were slowly filling up with a colorful array of students. Students who were staring at her. Not minding them at all, Tori went to her first period class. The classroom was relatively small.

Tori took the slip up to the teacher, a tall, balding man whose desk had a nameplate identifying him as Mr. Mason. He stared at the slip for a moment—not an encouraging response—and of course the Latina flushed tomato red. But at least he sent her to an empty desk at the back without introducing her to the class. Much to her glee. It was harder for her new classmates to stare at Tori in the back, but somehow, they managed. Asking questions, those who knew about her singing at the Black Box Theatre complimented her and after awhile she was able to read the reading list the teacher had given her.

It was a list mixed with varied authors: William Shakespeare, Edgar Allen Poe, Jane Eyre, H.P. Lovecraft. It was a strange list, the only authors Tori knew were Shakespeare and Eyre.

When the bell rang, a nasal buzzing sound, a gangly boy with pale skin and curly black hair and thick rimmed glasses leaned across the aisle to talk to Tori. But what really surprised her was that the boy was holding a puppet that looked similar to him.

"Hello sweetstuff!" The puppet said with a deep voice but was immediately shushed by the boy holding him. "Rex! Hush!" He then turned towards Tori. "You're Victoria Vega, aren't you?"

"Uh, yeah, but it's just Tori," She corrected. Everyone within a three-seat radius turned to look at her.

"Where's your next class?" He asked.

The Latina had to check the her schedule that was thrown haphazardly into her bag." Um, Music, with Jefferson." There was nowhere to look without meeting curious eyes.

"I'm headed towards my Art class near there, I could show you the way…"

"I'm Robbie Shapiro," He added.

"Don't even bother with it, she's probably gonna forget your name in the next ten minutes and I wouldn't blame her." Quipped the puppet named Rex.

Tori smiled and thanked Robbie as they grabbed their things and headed out the door, Robbie and Rex arguing along the way. As it weird as it was, it made her laugh nonetheless.


The rest of the morning passed in about the same fashion. Tori's Trigonometry teacher, Mr. Greene, who she would have hated anyway just because of the subject he taught, was the only one who made her stand in front of the class and introduce herself. The whole ordeal was completely awkward with all the stares she stammered, blushed, and tripped over her own boots on the way to her seat.

After two classes, she started to recognize several of the faces in each class. There was always someone braver (or cared more) than the others who would introduce themselves and ask her questions about how she was liking Hollywood Arts. It wasn't that bad of a school to be honest, but Tori had just transferred and this was the beginning of her Junior year. Not to mention everywhere she went she heard her name on the lips of those around her.

One girl sat next to her in both Trig and Music, and she walked with her to the cafeteria for lunch. She was tiny, several inches shorter than her five feet six inches. She couldn't remember her name, but she did remember the dark red color of her hair. Nevertheless, she smiled and nodded as she prattled about teachers and classes and other random things. Tori didn't try to keep up.

They sat at the end of a full table with several of the redhead's friends, who she introduced to the brunette. Besides, Robbie and Rex, Cat Valentine—the redhead—there was a dark skinned African American with dreads named Andre Harris who was really nice and a tall boy with tanned skin like Tori's only a shade darker and wild brown hair named Beck Oliver. Robbie and Rex, waved at her from across the room. It was there, sitting in the lunchroom, trying to make conversation with four curious strangers (five if you count Rex), that Tori first saw them.

They were on the far side of the cafeteria standing by the soda and snack machines. There were two of them. They weren't talking, and they weren't gawking at Tori, unlike most of the other students, so she figured it was safe to stare at them without fear of meeting an excessively interested pair of eyes. But it was none of these things that caught, and held, her attention.

Tori immediately assumed that the pair had to be siblings. Brother and sister due to their similarity in appearance. The boy was tall, lean but a bit muscular sporting a swimmer's-like build with dark brown hair sliced back to the nape of his neck. The girl on the other hand was tall as well but close to half a head shorter than her brother, she had a beautiful figure, the kind you saw on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, the kind that made every girl around her take a hit on her self-esteem just by being in the same room. Her hair was black, with red streaks gently waving to the middle of her back.

They also had dark shadows under those eyes aquamarine eyes. Purplish, bruise-like shadows. As if they were all suffering from a sleepless night, or almost done recovering from a broken nose.

"Who are they?" Tori asked Cat. As she looked up to see who the Latina meant—though already knowing, probably, from her tone—suddenly the raven-haired girl looked at her, the smaller one, the rigid one, the youngest, perhaps. She looked at Cat for just a fraction of a second, and then her brown eyes flickered to Tori's.

She looked away quickly, more quickly than Tori could, though in a flush of embarrassment she dropped my eyes at once. In that brief flash of a glance, her face held nothing of interest—it was as if she had called her name, and she'd looked up in involuntary response, already having decided not to answer.

Cat giggled in embarrassment, looking at the table like she did.

"That's Jade and Alex West." She said this under her breath.

Tori couldn't help but glance sideways at the beautiful girl, who was looking at her brother now, who was picking at the can of soda in his hands with long, pale fingers. Her mouth was moving very quickly, her perfect lips barely opening.

"They are…very nice-looking." Tori struggled to say without being too obvious.

"Yes!" Cat agreed with another giggle. "I guess it's the genes, you should see their parents though, they look like angels!"

So they are siblings, Tori thought to herself. It made sense.

"Do they always keep to themselves?"

"Not really," Beck said with a nonchalant shake of his head. "They're actually pretty social, well, Alex is, Jade is a bit of a..."

"Sadistic psychopath?" Andre added lightheartedly, baring his teeth with a smile.

"Well, I was going to say that she's a bit...standoffish." Beck said with an uneasy smile.

"'Standoffish'?" Rex repeated, bewildered. "That girl's like an African lioness, get too close and she'll bite your head off!"

"Rex!" Robbie scolded the puppet who put up a hand to his face as if it (or he?) didn't care. "That's the last time I let you watch the Discovery Channel by yourself!"

"Hey you know it's true!"

"Sure, Jade's 'standoffish' but she's not that bad. I mean, she's gorgeous, of course, but there's no time to be wasted there. She doesn't date. Apparently nobody here is good enough for her." He said with a hint of sadness. Tori wondered if she had ever turned him down.


Thankfully, Cat had and Acting class with Tori for the next hour so at least the brunette wouldn't feel so out of place with a friend there. The class was pretty small with the only desk being that of the teacher's in front. Inside the students were all sitting in chairs and Cat quickly found one. In fact, all the seats were filled but one. Next to the door, Tori immediately recognized Jade West by her dark hair and their red highlights, sitting next to that single open seat.

As the Latina walked down the aisle to introduce herself to the teacher and get her slip signed. The man was short with a shiny bald head, what little hair he had left was jutting out in different directions. Wearing nothing but sandals, shorts and a tattered shirt with a few holes in them. Did they get a hobo to teach this class? Was Tori's first thought.

She was eyed him cautiously.

The man suddenly flailed his hands in the air and began asking questions that were just downright ludicrous. According to the teacher, who's name was Sikowitz, the questions were needed for an actor to get a feel of the roles they could be handed. However, before Tori could even respond he sent her to sit down because he claimed that she was messing up his "mojo", according to the coconut sitting on his desk.

With a confused look, Tori turned around and went straight for the seat beside Jade. Just as the brunette passed, Jade suddenly went rigid in her seat. The pale girl stared at Tori, holding the strangest expression on her face—it was hostile, furious. The brunette looked away quickly, shocked, going red.

Instead of focusing on the insane teacher at the front of the class, Tori kept her eyes down as she sat next to her, bewildered by the antagonistic stare she'd given the brunette. The Latina didn't dare turn to face the pale girl, but she saw her posture change from the corner of her eye. Jade was leaning away from her, sitting on the extreme edge of her chair and averting her face as though she smelled something bad.

Tori felt a bit self-conscious, but tried to shake it off and pay attention to the teacher.

Unfortunately, as much of a left-wing nutcase Sikowitz was, dramatically acting out various scenes and talking to his coconut as it were an actually human being, the girl beside Tori who was sitting on the edge of her seat captured her full attention. Why did she look at me like that? Did I do something wrong?

The class seemed to drag on longer than the others. Was it because the day was finally coming to a close, or because Tori was waiting for her tight fist to loosen? It never did; she continued to sit so still it looked like she wasn't breathing. What was wrong with her?

It couldn't have anything to do with me. She didn't even know me. Feeling brave Tori decided to sneak a peek up at Jade one more time, and regretted it. She was glaring down at her again, her blue eyes full of revulsion. As the Latina flinched away from her, shrinking against her chair, the phrase if looks could kill suddenly ran through her mind. At that moment, the bell rang loudly, making Tori jump, and Jade West was out of her seat. Fluidly she rose, her back to her, and she was out the door before anyone else was out of their seat.


Footnotes

Hey everyone, this is my first fanfic for the Victorious fandom and since I love the Jade/Tori (Jori) pairing I thought I'd give it a shot. This story will be inspired by Twilight and the fact that their aren't many Vampire!Jade stories out there. For others wondering about Vampire!Jade having an OC vampire brother it will later become important in the story. The story is almost like a rewrite of the entire show with vampires added in. Since Tori and Jade's relationship in the beginning of the show was antagonistic (mostly on Jade's part) I chose the beginning of Twilight where Bella meets Edward for the first Jori scene. Everything else was changed to fit the Victorious universe.

Also I'd encourage you all to put a face to Alex West, I personally when writing envisioned him as Gaspard Ulliel. Most of you might not know him but he played the role of a teenage "Hannibal Lecter" in the film "Hannibal". Look him up, I'm sure guys are gonna find him cute and the perfect person to Jade's brother.