Hello my dear fans, it's been awhile since I've updated on any of my stories, but here is something I hope you will enjoy. This is my take and tribute on Elizabeth 'Liz' Gillies' upcoming movie that will be released on June 17, 2014, 'Animal'. This should be a fairly short story that I will be able to update with my others as I've been able to pick up on my writing schedule.

This story derives from the Victorious/iCarly universe and not the Sam & Cat AU and takes place after the last episode of the series.

Happy Friday the 13th.

iHunt the Animal
By OneHorseShay
Disclaimer: Don't Own, Don't Sue. For God sakes, don't sue.

Rating: High T Violence, Adult Themes/Content and Language; May increase as story progresses.

Pairings: Established Bade, others will be explored including Jade/Freddie (Jedi), Tori/Freddie (Teddie), Tori/Beck (Bori) and Cat/Robbie (Cabbie). Final pairings are not set.

Summary: A weekend getaway camping trip to prepare for final exams before graduation turns into a fight for survival as the Hollywood Arts students are hunted down to satisfy something's need to kill while a boy from Seattle's secret might save them all. Character Death Warnings galore. An Elizabeth Gillies 'Animal' tribute.

Chapter 1

Jade ran.

Jade ran as fast as she could manage in her hiking boots and injured leg on the rough forest terrain and dodging trees during the full moon lit night. She labored for breath as her heart pounded in her chest, her legs burned from exertion (especially her left one where she had torn cloth tied around her upper left thigh to stop the bleeding from a gash across her leg) and her ears filled with the pounding sound of her heartbeat. The need to get away her only goal after seeing the horrors of the past several hours, the several blood splatters on her short blue and white plaid shirt and arm being a testament.

Her effort didn't seem to be enough as she could hear the howling of the thing behind her getting closer and closer as it chased her down.

It wasn't a wolf or mountain lion or any other natural creature that God had placed on the Earth, but something different, something… unnatural… something straight out of Hell.

The dark haired beauty ran and ran and ran, swatting away any low and light weighted branch that was in her path until she misjudged her step and the tip of her boot caught something, an exposed root, a rock or just some uneven ground. She tumbled forward, but thankfully her arms flung upward and protected her face as she landed hard on the compacted ground. She may have protected her face from getting smashed, but that didn't into account the rest of her pain that shot through her arms, chest and knees from the hard landing. She coughed as the pain from those spots reverberated throughout the rest of her already sore, exhausted and over-exerted body.

She rolled on her back with a hiss and grimace on her face, but her pain was swept away from the forefront of her mind as outright terror gripped her heart and reflected on her face.

The 'Animal', somehow avoided the light from the overhead hanging full moon and obscured it from her getting a clear vision of the creature as it slowly stalked between the trees and towards the pale high school student. She suddenly had the presence of mind to start frantically crawling back on her elbows and kicked with her heels digging into the ground. The back of her arms hit something, a tree root or something, but whatever it was, she felt trapped and couldn't crawl back any further.

Jade looked into the creatures red eyes as he took his final steps towards her and she knew in her soul that the next moment was going to be her last one on this Earth…

Hours earlier…

Friday, June 15, 2012
Los Angeles, CA

Jade West was in a foul mood as she gazed out at the passing forest scenery from her passenger seat in the red pickup truck. Her frame of mind and emotions were in stark contrast to Beck's carefree attitude in the driver's seat.

The actor was driving her and the rest of their friends, riding in his trailer attached to the back of the pickup truck, to a little secluded camp ground in the Angeles National Forest. They had been traveling for about the last hour and were now on the Angeles Forest Highway only minutes away from their destination after meeting up at Hollywood Arts. Jade had thought it had been an hour too long to be riding next to her 'boyfriend', but it was far better than being in Beck's trailer feeling every possible bounce of the road.

Beck had noticed her sour disposition, but had ignored it for nearly the entire trip. However, since they would soon be arriving at their destination, he ventured to ask in what he hope came off as a curious tone rather than an accusatory one, "Okay, what's wrong?"

The dark brunette, free of her usual colored hair extensions, turned her head to look at his profile and answered with a clipped tone, "Nothing's wrong."

"Really? You haven't spoken since we've left Hollywood Arts, just staring out the window."

"I just didn't feel like talking. I didn't want our conversation to 'turn into a screaming match'."

The comment pricked at the handsome inspiring actor, a line that he used to voice one of his problems he had with her just before their breakup a few months ago. He was curious as to why she would suddenly bring that up since they had reconnected a few weeks ago after their three month breakup, but he asked what he thought was the more obvious question, "Why would our conversation turn into a screaming match?"

Jade kept her focus mainly on the road ahead of them, but glanced over to him with the corner of her eye to sharply retort, "Because we didn't resolve anything this morning; you just showed up on my front door and told me you were there to pick me up when you knew I didn't want to go on this little escape before exams. If I wanted to go someplace for a getaway before exams, it certainly wouldn't be out in the middle of the woods—Cancun would have been at the top of my list, but I didn't get to go there for our last semester break because you were too much of a coward to stand up to your family for me."

He sighed out with a soft roll of his eyes while still maintaining his eyes on the road for the most part, "Where is this coming from?"

She rolled her eyes and shook her head before looking out the passenger window. "I'm irritable okay. I did not want to spend my weekend in the woods before our finals. I would have liked to study in peace and quiet and as much as Tori can get under my skin and Cat can be scattered brain, they are good study partners—not all of us frolicking in the woods."

Beck calmly replied hoping she could see the advantage of the situation he was point out, feeling that this could easily turn into a screaming match if he didn't pick his next words carefully, "We're not just 'frolicking' in the woods; this is counting towards our final in a big way for them. All we have to do is listen to a few short lectures and do a few scenes and we're done. Why do you think so many other seniors are meeting us there? Sikowitz is willing to just have this replace his final for us."

Jade bowed her head slightly and palmed her forehead, a small shot of pain going through it at him being so oblivious to the obvious point about having exams. She blew out a slow breath to try to calm the growing annoyance and calmly responded as to not try to escalate things, "We still have other classes than acting—state exams that we can't be exempted."

Beck spotted the end of the road to the campground parking as he answered, "You'll do fine and there is a thing as too much studying."

The dark haired senior glanced out the front windshield, silently fuming at him thinking he knew better than her and making the decision on how much she should study before the finals.

The 'fluffy haired' actor continued driving down the road for about a dozen more yards following the signs to towards the trailer parking. The red pickup truck pulled to a stop in a designated spot and couple exited the vehicle as soon as the actor put the vehicle in park.

Jade stepped out the truck, revealing her attire for the first day of their camping trip of her grey long sleeve shirt with an eagle print, dark blue jeans and boots. It was a little much in covering as the temperatures were starting to rise to the low eighties, but she had her reasons.

The couple walked to the door and as had happened two years ago when they had went to Venice Beach, the door flung open and Cat literally jumped from the trailer. She chanted as she ran past them, "Got to pee, got to pee."

Jade dryly commented as the couple watched the redhead desperately find a restroom, "She still has the bladder of a squirrel."

The others, André, Robbie, and Trina, soon followed out the door led by Tori. The brunette wore a bright smile and took in a deep breath of the clear air, a considerable improvement over the usual air content in the rest of the City of Angels.

Tori let out a joyful laugh while commenting, "Now this is some fresh air."

Jade crossed her arms under her chest and mocked, "Yes, nice clean fresh air… we just have to worry about all the creepy crawly bugs trying to crawl all over and bite us."

The outgoing brunette turned her attention to her pale rival and directed a narrow gaze and soft frown.

Seeing that she had burst Tori's excitement at least for the moment put a smile on Jade's face and lifted her spirits with having to be drug out into the middle of the woods.

Beck rolled his eyes and shook his head, quickly realizing that dragging her out here really could be a bad idea. He was not looking forward to watching Jade snip at every opportunity to bring down the weekend.

Of all the people to agree with Jade, it was Trina who quickly pulled out a small bottle of bug spray out of her back jeans short pocket and started spraying all over herself, especially over her upper chest and upper curvature of her breasts and cleavage that was revealed in her pink scoop neck tank top.

Robbie started coughing and frantically tried to wave away the mist as some of it inevitably blew in his direction.

The older Vega sister popped the top back on the spray and idly commented, "Jade's right. Got to protect the 'girls' from all those mosquitoes."

Jade smirked and motioned her hand towards Trina even if she hated to admit being in agreement with the girl.

Tori rolled her eyes and started pass Jade and Beck to head in the direction of the other arriving students. "Let's go find Sikowitz."

Trina, André and Robbie followed behind her with Beck closing and locking his trailer door behind him. Jade brought up the rear and quickly joined by Beck's side, not bothering to hide her distain of being out here with them.

As the group was passing several of their fellow students' parked cars, one particular vehicle caught André and Beck's attention. The long haired actor whistled as he looked at the '69 black Dodge Charger. He took a quick glance through the rolled up windshield at the white interior and commented in high praise, "Wow, now this is a nice car. I didn't know anyone at school drove this."

Jade stopped and crossed her arms under her chest and shrugged her shoulders. "It is a pretty sweet ride," she commented without trying to sound to enthusiastic in agreeing with her boyfriend. The color and type of car was certainly her style. The car looked like it was in pristine condition, just rolled off the assembly line and she was impressed with the muscle car. The color and style certainly appealed to her, but she did not look forward having to sit back and listen to Beck talk to the owner of the car for hours on end about it and other similar vehicles.

Trina stopped to admire the vehicle, joining in the wonder who could own the restored car. If someone could put this much time and care into a car, she wondered what else he could put such care into and as vain as it sounded, how much money did he have at his disposal.

A familiar and friendly voice called out from the group, "Thanks. I'm glad someone can truly appreciate it."

The group turned to see the familiar brown haired teenager from Washington state beam a smile to their direction.

Tori's face brightened like the morning sunshine at the surprise and trotted over and pulled the Seattleite into a quick and joyful hug, even sparing him a quick kiss on the cheek.

Freddie Benson returned the smile and at least the hug, unsure if he should risk a cheek kiss. He pulled out of Tori's grasp and the younger Vega sister ecstatically finished greeting him, "Hey."

He answered in a little more somber, but not any less happy to see her, "Hey Tori."

Tori didn't get a chance to reply as her older sister spoke up with a warm welcome, "Hello Freddie." She directed a flirtatious smile at him as she approached then pulled him into a tight hug. She let her hand travel a little further in the hug and gave a slight squeeze of his bottom, drawing a wide eyed response from him. She pulled back and grinned.

The younger brunette's eyes nearly popped from her sockets as she looked to her sister with a scandalous expression, perhaps ready to tear into her.

Freddie glanced to Tori then nervously chuckled, "Good to see you too Trina."

Cat came running out of nowhere from Freddie's point-of-view and jumped towards the tech-producer and threw her arms out for a hug, assuming that he would catch her.

Freddie didn't fail her by easily catching her in his strong arms while she wrapped them around the back of his neck. "Hey Cat," he warmly greeted her as he sat her back down on her feet. "Good to see you too."

The redhead sweetly smiled to the handsome teenager and softly bit her bottom lip while she giggled then took a step back.

He kept his bright smile on as he turned it towards the Jade and greeted, "Hi Jade."

The pale girl still had her arms crossed under her chest and wore a guarded, non-hostile expression on her face, as she neutrally replied, "Hey."

He nodded his head and his smile slightly slipped, apparently looking a little disappointed with her less than warm welcome.

She felt a mild tinge of regret at what came off as a brush off response. They hadn't had a lot of contact with one another, just some pleasant (and not stupid) conversation during Kenan's party, his visit last September for Tori's play and a few exchanges on TwitFlash/TheSlap, but he hadn't done anything to her during those exchanges. He had in his favor that he wasn't stupid or annoying as Robbie or Sinjin. He may have been nearly as sickening nice as Tori, but he had a good head on his shoulders… and he was a pretty chunk-a-boy that seemed to have gotten better looking since the last time she had seen him in person. She couldn't correct herself in time as he turned his attention to the guys and they quickly exchanged greetings.

Tori quickly asked, "What are you doing here?"

Freddie put his charming smile back on and shrugged a shoulder. "Oh, I saw from your Slap page that you'd be here for the weekend and I was passing through the state, so I thought I'd stop by and surprise you with a visit. I hope you don't mind. I wouldn't think they would notice one more teenager and this is a public national park. They can't exactly tell me to leave."

Trina eagerly pointed out as she slid up next to him and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, "Well we're glad you're here."

The minor web-celebrity smiled at the attention though there was a little bit of apprehension shown on his face.

The redhead eagerly asked, clearly hoping to see her fellow cupcake lover and the vicious blonde that reminded her of Jade, "Where's Carly and Sam?"

The Seattle teenager's smiled faltered once more and he offhandedly commented, "I imagine they're studying for exams and getting ready for graduation."

Tori furled her brow and questioned, "Why aren't you up there doing the same?"

He nervously chuckled while slipping out of Trina's grasp, "That's kind of a story."

"Oh?" the younger brunette questioned in concern and mild surprise from his facial expression, clearly unaware of some apparent life changes. She quickly recovered with a near bashful response, "Well there'll be plenty of time to hear about it tonight. I want to hear all about it."

Freddie looked a little taken aback from her offer to a number of the other teenagers watching as he answered, "Okay."

André waved the group over where some of their fellow students were heading and some had already gathered and called out, "I hate to interrupt, but we've got to sign in so we can get credit for being here."

The songsmith turned and walked to join the other students waiting in line to sign-in for the school campout.

Cat happily skipped along to follow with Robbie eager on her heels.

Tori looped her arm around the boy from Seattle's left arm and they walked together towards the check-in desk with Trina trailing behind with a partially hid expression of jealousy.

Jade spared a roll of her eyes of Tori putting on her flirtatious little act to try to wrap Freddie around her little finger. The dark haired teenager shouldn't really care who Tori directed her flirtation as long as it wasn't directed towards Beck. She also couldn't feel any real jealousy or competition towards the brunette as when they competed for Moose as she was… 'content' with Beck and wasn't looking around. The Seattle teenager also seemed to be a perfect fit for the thorn in her side brunette from what she knew of him, the sweet handsome boy-next-door.

The group walked a few yards to take their place at the end of the line and patiently waited their turn to sign in for the school gathering. Jade glanced to see Sinjin and a Hispanic girl standing beside him that looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn't place her identity, the curly dirty blonde's little sister Courtney and his odd friend Burf further up the line.

Robbie recognized the girl Jade couldn't recall as Gabriella, the girl that he had asked out and took to prom when Cat was throwing out all the signals that she didn't want him to ask her. He wore a mildly irritated expression that she seemed to be so cozy with Sinjin. He wasn't necessarily upset that Gabriella hadn't wanted to start something up after prom, but knowing that he was being beaten out by Sinjin stung at what little pride he possessed.

Trina noticed a few students as well a head of them in signing up. Hollywood Arts' other heartthrob, the sandy blonde Mark McCallan was hand-in-hand with the lovely Jessica Wolf, a onetime date of Robbie's that definitely set herself higher standards since her sophomore year. So much in fact, that she had become a rising star in the other parallel acting and music classes to the group of friends in Sikowitz's class that some started considering her a true rival to Tori, well before the younger Vega sister's performance at the PMAs. The girl of unknown Asian decent beauty had blossomed with a lovely face and desirable figure for the guys of the school, especially upstairs that was proportional to the rest of her figure.

All these developments for Jessica—including apparently getting with Mark—just infuriated Trina. She still cursed the weekend she had to get her wisdom teeth pulled instead of going out on that date with Mark.

There were two others behind them, a male and female junior, but Trina didn't really give them much thought. The girl had strawberry blonde hair and unknown to her was Mark's younger sister, Suzy while the guy with nearly black hair that was nearly long enough to reach his jaw line was Dalton, the number two guy that ran TheSlap.

The group finally reached the table where there were several sheets lying on the table with student names. Tori picked up one of the pens and searched for her name near the end of one of the sheets. The brunette signed her name in then handed the pen to Freddie, but quickly realized that he wouldn't be signing.

Freddie just smiled and took the pen from her without missing a beat. He looked down at the sheets and glanced over the names, noticing that the vast majority of them had been signed. However, noticing that their group was the end of the line, he picked a blank spot and signed his name. He smiled at the teacher while handing his pen to André.

Tori walked with Freddie, her arm still looped with his arm, to let the rest have their turn sign-in. As the pair started to follow the other students to where they would gather for the teachers to get the day started, she brought her lips close to his ear and whispered, "Who did you sign?"

Freddie shrugged his shoulder and lazily answered, "Just some guy named Dustin Hale. I hope he doesn't get mad at me if he shows up."

The rest of the group signed-in then quickly caught up with the pair just as they were approaching the edge of the student body that showed up. There were about four dozen teenagers that had gathered in front of a makeshift platform, presumably what was going to be used for the performances over the weekend, where Sikowitz and two other teachers were standing on either side of him, a male and female.

Sikowitz pressed the siren button on the bullhorn in his left hand then started speaking with it wearing a broad grin on his face, "Okay ladies and gentlemen. I'm glad so many of you were able to make it to our Super-Weekend Review Campout. This will give you an opportunity to study and perform with your classmates in order to prepare for your final exams. We will also be having several graded performances, meaning I along with Mister Gradstein…"

A soft murmur swept through the crowd at the mentioning of the mid-thirties scriptwriting teacher. He was well known for being a harsh grader and quite frankly, wasn't much liked through the school.

The soft smile Gradstein wore quickly faded as he had the same opinions on them with their reaction.

Freddie looked to Tori for an explanation, but she quietly whispered into his ear, "I'll explain later."

"…and Miss Bissette will be the ones issuing the grades."

The murmurs ceased at the introduction of the very lovely brunette in her mid-thirties. She had fair skin with long and luscious dark brown hair that rested over her plaid shirt covered shoulders. She had a curvy yet thin figure that the plaid shirt and mid-thigh shorts snuggle held and she had been the object of fantasies to many of the male students at the school—along with a few females.

The eccentric acting teacher continued, "These performances will count as extra credit towards your finals and we've agreed if two out of three of us agree, it can replace your final in whichever one of our classes you attend. We're going to start at about eight o'clock, so in the meantime, you can sign up for one of these performances, pick up a script and begin practicing with your cast mates. For those of you who aren't going to perform, we expect you to show up as an audience, but the rest of the time is yours to relax and study and do whatever you want…" He erratically motioned with his pointer fingers around as he finished, "…as long as it isn't dangerous or illegal. Everyone have a good time and good luck."

The gathering of teenagers started milling about, randomly conversing with one another while some were started disperse.

Freddie looked to the brunette to his right and asked, "So, what's your plans for tonight?"

Tori glanced towards the others, catching several of their eyes to confirm the plan they had made before leaving Hollywood Arts, then back to him to answer with a sweet, playful voice, "I thought we'd sign up for a performance after an early dinner, but head to the lake for a quick relaxing swim before we had to start practicing and studying."

The teenager raised an eyebrow, his mind quickly imagining her and the other girls in swimsuits. He softly blushed and hoped the attractive brunette wouldn't notice his reaction.

Author's Note: I'm going to take liberties with the geography of the national park for story purposes, so if anyone actually lives in the area and visits it, sorry. I hope to update next Thursday, so happy reading until then and go see Elizabeth's movie on Tuesday if you're near a showing or OnDemand by you local cable company.