Maelstrom
n: a situation or state of confused movement or violent turmoil.
Part 2: May 2013
Jade yawned, attempting to keep her head up nonetheless; it wouldn't do to have her falling asleep on one of their streams. Cat's giggle jolted her up. "Sleepy already, Jade?" Cat teased.
"No," Jade replied grumpily. "I just wish this race would start already."
"I'm gonna win," Moose stated confidently. "That is, as long as Robbie doesn't spam those freakin' red shells and win by cheating. We all know there's no way he could win otherwise."
"Hey!" Robbie protested. "That's offensive!"
"But true," Jade replied. "If you're being beaten by either Robbie or Sinjin, you know there's something wrong with your life."
Robbie spluttered out some protests, but Sinjin's reply was simply "I would consider it a pleasure to be beaten by you, Jade." She gave a long-suffering sigh in response to that – there was no use in informing Sinjin that she was not, nor would she ever, be into him; he never seemed to get the point.
"Three seconds," Cat chirped. "Two… one!"
"Thank you, Big Ben," Jade retorted, holding controller. "I swear, if anyone hits me with a red shell this race they're going to taste my shell in their –"
"Jade!" Cat cut her off with a gasp.
Jade simply grinned wickedly as she came up behind Cat, and then swerved past her with a boost of speed. "Bye, Kitty Cat."
"Not fair," Cat protested. "Hey, watch out for that green shell!"
With Cat's warning, Jade successfully avoided it, but the same did not hold true for Moose – the green shell hit him and knocked him off the edge of the map. The string of words he let out in response made Cat squeal and cover her ears.
"Nice one, Sinjin," Jade said, holding in her laughter.
"Thank you, my queen," Sinjin replied humbly. Jade simply rolled her eyes at him, speeding away from him as quickly as she could.
"I'm winning!" Robbie chirped, sounding like an innocent little bird – something Jade hated. So, inevitably, she took the opportunity to hit him with a blue shell, knocking him all the way back to fifth place, behind her and quite a few of the random players that had joined them. He pouted. "You guys suck so much."
"Man up, Shapiro," she retorted, loving to pick on her wimpy, somewhat annoying (but still tolerable) "friend". He was one of the few people on USlap that preferred to be called by his full name rather than just his first name (like Jade) or a nickname (like Moose) so she inevitably used that to her advantage. "And get good."
"You get good!" Robbie sputtered, obviously offended – which, rather than making Jade feel bad, simply made her laugh. "Don't throw that green shell at me, Moose!"
"Get good then," Moose shot back, making Jade laugh. Back in the day, quite a few people had shipped them, but Jade knew that he was little more than a friend – and besides that, he had a girlfriend, one that was funny and hardcore and really cared about Moose. No way would she jeopardize that.
Jade sighed, but continued on – dodging red shells, yelling at Cat when she hit her with the boomerang, and drifting like a boss. She ended up in third place, which was fine with her; however, the rest of them were not quite so lucky.
"12th place?" Robbie yelped. "I was doing so well!"
"This game sucks – worst game of the year," moped Moose, who had somehow ended up in 10th place.
"It's really fun, though!" Cat informed everyone, relentlessly optimistic as ever.
"And the graphics are almost as beautiful as Jade," Sinjin said dreamily, one of his twisted compliments Jade couldn't stand.
"Thanks," Jade hissed, but suddenly her Steam made its weird noise, indicating a new message. Curiously, she slid her laptop over to where she sat – who would be messaging her at this time of night?
New Steam Message:
Beck: Jade :D Just woke up and saw you were online so I figured Id say hi :) also curious if youd be interested in getting some people together for a lil game of TTT? message me whenever :D
She felt herself smiling inadvertently; somehow he brought out an odd reaction in her. The others, however, noticed her sudden silence (and heard her Steam notification) and immediately figured out what was happening.
"Ohh, Jade," Cat squealed, "did you get a message from Beck?"
"Yeah," she replied indifferently, "he just wanted to know about another co-op soon or whatever. No big deal."
"No big deal?" Moose gasped. "No big deal except… Bade."
"Shut up," she said with a small laugh. The fan hype had merely gotten stronger, especially as they'd posted a few more videos together, and Jade found it amusing more than anything. Of course, so did her friends.
"I ship it!" Cat squealed, her enthusiasm leaking all over her words.
All Jade could do was groan.
.
She messaged Beck later that night, though, after being annihilated in Mario Kart by those freaking red shells, and told him she was all for it. Beck replied happily, saying that one of his friends had already agreed to play, and would she ask André because he liked her better (which was untrue, Beck was probably just being lazy). She did it nonetheless. Within minutes, André replied, saying that he was all for it.
They decided to play the next Friday. G-mod was one of Jade's favorite games, honestly, because of the complete versatility it possessed - within one simple game was the potential to play and create lots of other games. So she was psyched to play with Beck, André, and – well, whatever friend he'd invited.
Beck called her then, snapping her out of her musings. "Hey, Jade," he greeted. "So, André's here and I wanted to introduce you to my friend –"
"Vega," she deadpanned. "I should've known."
Tori Vega's laugh came through the Skype call, confirming Jade's suspicions. The young, pretty gamer girl went by the name ToriVegaDocious on USlap and was famous for her fresh approach to video games, as well as her peppy personality. Although she was completely opposite to the cynical Jade, the two of them simply had a friendly relationship characterized by bickering and had played a few games together in the past. Besides, despite Tori's relative attractiveness, Jade knew Tori was no threat to her relationship with Beck – not that she was worried about that or anything. Tori's voice interrupted her thoughts. "Hey, Jade."
"Oh, you guys know each other," Beck said, surprised. "It's weird, Jade – we know all the same people; you think we'd have met sooner."
"Yeah, that is really weird," Jade replied, slightly confused herself – why hadn't André or Tori mentioned Beck soon? Perhaps they figured the two of them wouldn't get along, since Jade usually wasn't a fan of cocky, silly guys like Beck – but Beck was different somehow. She couldn't put her finger on how, but he was. "So, enough chat. Who's up for some TTT?"
"I'm innocent," Tori piped up.
Jade rolled her eyes. "Vega, we haven't even started yet."
"I'm still innocent!" Tori protested.
With a shake of her head, Jade got to work setting up the server – not like the other three could do it – and then all of them joined. As the game prepared, Jade whipped out her gun and shot Beck in the head.
"Excuse me!" Beck spluttered. "The game hasn't even started yet! I could be innocent, ya know."
"I think you and André are conspiring together," Jade shot back, spinning around to aim a few shots at André, who seemed equally as offended at being chosen as the 'traitor'. Since the game hadn't started yet, no health was taken away – but that didn't mean André took it well.
"I think you're the traitor!" André hissed, shooting her back.
At that point, though, the game began, and Jade was listed as innocent. In her best imitation of Tori Vega's innocent girl voice, Jade whined, "Don't shoot me, guys, I'm all innocent and sweet and stuff."
"I don't talk like that!" Tori protested immediately.
"Liar." Jade smirked.
"I think we should just sing a little song and get along, dawg," André cut in. "Let's sing that song that's all over the radio – Make It Shine or whatever."
"I love that song!" Tori replied cheerily. "Here I am, once again – "
"Feeling lost but now and then." André joined her.
"I breathe it in to let it go –"
"And you don't know where you are now…"
"Or what it would come to if only somebody could hear."
"When you figure out how you're lost in the moment…"
"You disappear!"
Their song was interrupted by the sound of gunshots and suddenly Jade's character was lying on the ground, dead already. Immediately, Tori and André took action and gunned Beck, the perpetrator, down – only to discover he was innocent as well. "WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT?" Jade practically yelled, confused.
"…the beat dropped," Beck replied innocently.
Jade couldn't help but laugh at how completely ludicrous his reasoning was and soon enough André and Tori joined in. "The beat dropping doesn't mean everything else has to drop as well!"
This only made André and Tori laugh more – before, of course, they realized they were the only two left and one of the two had to be the traitor. This realization made Tori scream – probably because in her shootout with Beck she had minimum health, putting André at an extreme advantage.
"Andréeeee," Tori sang loudly, pacing the hallways in pursuit of her friend. "Where are youuuu?"
"Hey, Tor," André said nervously as she approached his location. "Listen, we can talk this out – "
But it was too late. The gunshots started flying from both directions and before they knew it, André was dead – and, apparently, he had been the traitor. Tori yelped victoriously. "I've won for all decent humankind."
"So racist," André muttered under his breath, making Beck and Jade crack up.
A new map loaded and as their characters spawned, Beck began to speak. "Okay, now we must lay down some rules. No shooting people unless they've given you a reason to shoot them –"
"You're the one that's going around randomly shooting people just because the 'beat dropped'!" Jade objected.
"Excuse me, Jade, listen to the rules," Beck told her calmly. "It's okay to kill people when the beat drops."
"Oh my gosh," Jade groaned, rolling her eyes at Beck's antics.
"So when the beat drops you just kill everyone?" Tori questioned. "Yes, Beck, that's how this game works."
"That's not how it's supposed to work!" Jade informed them all.
"Yeah, if you play the boring way," Beck replied offhandedly.
With a roll of her eyes, Jade began exploring the map. She entered a room that had a suspicious thing in the middle of it – a metal circle with a glowing blue hue, looking somewhat like the portals from Portal 2. With a frown, she asked, "What's this portal doing here?"
"Oh, it's the Stargate!" Tori exclaimed happily, as if this Stargate was the solution to all the world's problems. "Let's all go to it."
"I don't know where it is," André complained, "and also I think you're the traitor."
"This way," Beck replied, probably attempting to guide André to the room Jade was in. (Not that it would work out well – Beck had the directional sense of a two-year-old.)
Eventually, the other three showed up in the room in front of Jade, a room with a glass window that allowed them to see her in the Stargate. "Hey girl," André greeted her, shooting the glass window in front of her as some twisted form of greeting.
Beck moved forward then, obviously triggering some sort of button because the window in front of Jade suddenly begun to be encased by a metal covering. "I'm gonna die," Jade hissed. "Stop it!"
"I'm sorry!" Beck apologized quickly, pressing all sorts of buttons in an attempt to get the metal casing to retract back up – but in vain.
"I'm claustrophobic," Jade told everyone dramatically.
Beck hit another button, and this one apparently controlled the metal casing, because it began to pick back up. Relieved, Beck said, "See, you're fine."
"Whatever. Just get your butts in here," Jade commanded.
The other three scrambled madly to find the door, but it took them a while to navigate their way to the Stargate. Once they got there, André inquired, "What happens if you go through the Stargate?"
"You die…or something like that," Beck informed them ominously.
"Hey, let's all go through it together," Tori chirped. "It'll be fun. Like a bonding experience or something."
Beck, not being the most adept at deciphering suspicious situations, immediately walked up to the Stargate, and Jade followed – but accidentally went too far and found herself being consumed by it. "Jade!" Beck yelped. "Jade, are you all right?"
"I'm dead," she replied monotonously.
"I'll rescue you!" he said brightly, but as soon as he stepped in he was killed as well. That left André with Tori – and at this point, it was obvious who the traitor was.
"You tricked us!" André yelled, but it was too late to protest – Tori shot him before the last syllable left his mouth.
"Well, you were right, André," Jade said with a laugh.
"It was kind of a thing of the Stargate kills you and she's like, yeah, let's all go to it," André told them all, laughing.
"Well, it worked!" Tori said, sounding offended.
The game reset – Jade was still innocent. "Let's all congregate," Jade said. "No one shoot yet. That means you, Beck."
"Hey!" Beck protested, but followed André and Tori over to where Jade was. Once they were all there, Beck began speaking in a quote-on-quote feminine voice. "Hey, guys, how's it going, I'm Jade. I hate ducks, cilantro, bras that hook in the front, people who put ketchup on hot dogs, the number nine, happiness, and babies. Oh, and if you're watching this and you're offended by any of that, I probably hate you too." As he said the last syllable, he shot Jade multiple times, killing her. When André and Tori lifted their guns to him, he monotonously said, "Hey guys, don't shoot me." This simply made the other two laugh as they shot him down.
"Best traitor ever. You were so chill about it, man," André told him through peals of laughter. "Did you think we wouldn't shoot you?"
"I thought maybe if I stayed calm you guys wouldn't shoot me," Beck said defensively.
"Oh yeah, that'll work," André retorted. "Yeah man, when I went up in that bank and shot up everyone I figured the police wouldn't arrest me if I just stayed calm."
That set off everyone again, making them laugh nonstop for a few seconds until they remembered how to breathe. "Oh yeah, killing Jade, just an average Saturday," Beck mocked with a laugh.
"Hey, at least you were right – I hate all that stuff," Jade said, grinning. "Have you been studying me or something?"
"…I may have watched quite a few of your videos to figure that out," Beck admitted reluctantly, making André hoop and holler at this reluctant confession and Tori giggle.
"Well, you know what else I hate?" Jade said with a smirk.
"What?" Beck asked, reluctance still in his voice.
"Canada." Jade laughed, knowing that despite the fact that Beck lived in LA currently, he was born and raised Canadian
"You did not," Beck gasped. "Canada is an amazing, friendly country and you're just jealous because you're a stinky American – although even that is doubtful cause you don't dip your fries in ketchup."
"Ketchup is disgusting!" Jade told him angrily, passionate about her ketchup dislike.
"…guys, the next round is starting," Tori cut in, interrupting their little 'feud'.
"Oh," Jade said loudly and in her 'scary voice' – the one that practically made Robbie pee his pants.
Jade was the traitor this time, which meant she had to think up a way to kill the other three. The first step, she thought, was to lure them all into the same room, so she began shooting the wall. "Guys, follow the sound of the gunshots," she said loudly. "Seriously. I'm not gonna do anything bad. Just c'mon."
No protests were made, and in a few moments Tori, Beck, and André showed up. "Everyone come in," Jade instructed, leading them to stand in front of a red light. "Look at this light. Now watch." Jade moved forward and, upon contact with the light, it turned green. "It changed colors."
"That's great?" Tori said, sounding hesitant.
"Yep." Jade popped the 'p'. Now that they were successfully distracted, Jade rooted through her inventory, deciding to purchase a C4. It was the quickest way to kill everyone, she figured. Trying to be sneaky, she set it down and then –
"Why'd you kill me?"
"Jade, you set down a C4," Tori said through peals of laughter. "Did you really think we wouldn't notice?"
"I was just about to make up an excuse, too," Jade pouted. "You didn't even give me a chance!"
"You were the traitor!" André exclaimed.
"Traitors are humans too!" Jade reminded them, but even she was laughing, not allowing herself to be truly angry. "Don't pick up my body!"
"But you've got such a nice body," Beck told her through laughter, waving her 'corpse' in the air. "Oh yes, twerk for me."
"No one wants to twerk for you, Beck!"
"I'm sure people do," Beck replied calmly. "Hey guys, if you wanna twerk for me – or you want Jade to twerk for me – hit me up on Twitter at GotBeck with the hashtag #twerkforbeck."
Rolling her eyes, Jade said, "I'm not gonna twerk for him."
"You should!" Beck told her brightly.
"I think that's enough of this game – Beck's going a bit delusional in the head," she said, smirking. "So yeah, leave a like if you enjoyed and remember to unsubscribe from GotBeck for harassing me."
"Excuse me!" Beck spluttered.
"Bye," Jade sang, and Tori and André sung their farewells as well. Stopping the recording, Jade sighed. "So, is there any other game you guys wanna play?"
"Actually, I'm getting tired – it's 3 am here," Tori said with a yawn. The young girl was currently living overseas in London, which meant while it was only 10 pm for Jade, it was 5 hours later for Tori. "I think I'm gonna go to bed, but we should definitely play some more another time. Maybe Prop Hunt next time?"
"I would kick butt at Prop Hunt," Beck said seriously (a claim which Jade highly doubted).
"I think I'm gonna go too, man," André piped up. "I'm gonna go pick up some pizza or something – I'm pretty hungry. But I'll talk to you guys later, yeah? We'll definitely play some Prop Hunt and my team will kill it."
"Cool," Jade said casually. "Talk to you guys later."
"See ya!" Tori and André chirped as they logged off of Skype.
That left Beck and Jade alone again on Skype. Beck broke the silence first, asking, "Hey, so you wanna play some dumb two-player game?"
"Yeah, cause I'll kick your butt at it."
"You and all your lies," Beck replied darkly. "Wanna goof around on Mario Kart? I know you guys played it on the stream, but…"
"I'm always up to kick a guy's butt in Mario Kart."
"We'll see about that."
.
Jade wasn't entirely sure why she put up a fanmail address – but she did, and now she had a big pile of fanmail in front of her. It always astounded her that this many people would take time out of their day to send her a letter, a card, or a gift. She read every single one of them, though – if they could take the time to write it or draw it or buy it, then she could at least take the time to acknowledge it.
The first one she opened was the typical fan letter: "Hi Jade, I love you so much. We're like, long lost cousins or something. We're just alike, down to our bra size. Haha, you inspire me every day." She tried to smile, although the letter was more than a bit creepy, and decided to move on to the next letter.
She pulled out a drawing and smiled despite herself – it was a drawing of her and Beck from TTT, both decked out in camouflage from head to toe, standing back to back. The grumpy-looking drawing version of her said "I hate Canada", while the drawing version of Beck said "but you love me" with a cute little heart. Although she hated the word "adorable", she had to admit it was. She pushed the drawing aside and turned to the letter.
"Hey Jade,
I hope you don't mind that I drew Bade~ It's just s'cute. I hope you enjoy it anyway. You and Beck have the cutest friendship c:
Love you and your videos! Your playthrough of Mad Father is, hands down, one of the best. Plus your voice is so ~sexy~.
Keep doing what you're doing! :3
Katie"
With a small shake of her head, she picked up the fanart and pinned it to the lonesome bulletin board in her room. She wasn't really fond of decoration, aside from the dead butterfly displays and a few scattered posters. As long as she had her gaming systems, her TV, and her PC, she was fine.
She sifted through some more mail – another corny letter, a card with a weirdly drawn picture of her inside, a plea for her to show her face. Sighing, she shook her head; she had a feeling that everyone would be disappointed if she were to show her face via the Internet.
Pushing herself up, she walked through the lonely house to the refrigerator and opened the door, staring into the white void. She picked up a package of string cheese and searched for the expiration label – did string cheese expire? – before settling on a nice bowl of ice cream. The house seemed even more empty as she sat alone with her ice cream, feeling like a middle-aged housewife with no kids.
Maybe she should get a cat or something – reaffirm her status as a lonely cat lady or whatever. Beck had a cute little dog he'd named Mia, so he wasn't quite as lonely. Wait – how had she come back to the subject of Beck again?
Beck was just a good friend, she told herself. Just because practically everyone shipped them and thought that they were into each other didn't mean they were. It was a friendly thing, and besides, they'd only been friends for a few months. The awkwardness that sometimes settled in would go away with time. Right?
With a roll of her eyes, she navigated to his USlap page and checked the TTT video. His description made her laugh:
We decided to try out this TTT thing. :D
USlappers up in hurr:
André (PianoMAndré)
Tori (ToriVegaDocious)
aaaand Jade (ScissorLuv) #twerkforbeck
She gave a small laugh, wondering if anyone had actually posted that hashtag or if his stupid efforts had been in vain. Probably not – Beck was a bit of a fail when it came to stuff like that.
She glanced down at the comments, laughing when she saw the most liked comment:
Notice how distracted Beck and Jade get with each other. ;D #Bade
…it was only getting worse.
.
One thing she hadn't counted on, though, was how much being associated with Beck would boost her popularity. One minute, it seemed, she was barely at 900,000 subscribers, and the next she was nearing on one million. One million – the number seemed unfathomable to her. One million people had taken the time to watch her stupid little videos and then pressed the subscribe button. One million live, breathing people, all with lives and preferences and…ships.
She didn't know how to thank her fans but with another playthrough, this time of a very intriguing game – Catherine. She'd heard a lot of good things about the game, although it did seem like a pretty challenging puzzle game. One thing about Jade, though – she was always up for a challenge.
As she booted the game up, she thought again about how far she'd come. With every subscriber, with every view, she was making more cash, making the likelihood of her having to get a normal, boring job much less. And although she did like earning her subscribers herself, she couldn't protest against this kind of attention, so she'd have to thank Beck later.
The title screen loaded at last and she began a new game, immediately fascinated by the protagonist, Vincent, and his clingy girlfriend Katherine – who reminded her a bit of herself, although she hoped she'd never be that bad. The first time Catherine appeared on the screen, though, she immediately took a little bit of a disliking to her. Something wasn't right about her, she thought.
After playing for a little bit, she decided to turn off the games and doze off to sleep, but the boy who'd been invading her thoughts similarly invaded her dreams. In the dream, he was lounging in front of her, staring at her with big brown eyes. "Jade," he said breathily, and she realized at once that he'd seen her – her physical appearance, the part of her she'd hoped to hide from the world.
"I-I'm sorry," she stuttered, something that scarcely ever happened. "I know I'm –"
"You're beautiful," he replied, and his voice was so alluringly seductive that she was immediately drawn to it. She stood before him, feeling small, and waited as he leaned down to her, about to –
She woke up in a puddle of wetness. Ugh. She didn't sweat! Nor did she bow down to any man, much less Beck freaking Oliver, 'king' of the weird section of the Internet. She didn't let anyone make her feel that way. But her body was still weak and her heart was still pounding and she thought that if the dream happened in real life she'd probably let him kiss her and that terrified her.
Feeling more determined, she got out of the bed and went to wash her face. After returning, though, she saw that she had a new message on Steam.
New Steam Message
GotBeck: Hey Jade :D I saw you posted a new vid and I thought Id watch. You seemed a little off thou. Is everything ok?
ScissorLuv: Yeah, I'm fine. Don't worry about it, Beck.
GotBeck: You dont seem fine D:
ScissorLuv: Seriously, it's okay. I was just tired. Better now though.
GotBeck: Good. Idk what Id do without my new dude.
ScissorLuv: Yeah. Whatever that means.
He confused her, she thought. Calling her a "dude" was a clear indication that he thought of her as no more than a friend, yet when he spoke to her sometimes it seemed as though he was flirting. Was he interested? Was he not?
Was she interested?
That, she thought, was the real question.
.
New Steam Message
KittyKitCat: Heyyy, Jade C: I was thinking maybe you could invite Beck to stream with us next Saturday? It'd be fuuuun. He seems super nice. :3
Oh, crap, Jade thought. It seemed as though it was time for Beck to meet the friends.
.
A/N: well this sucks.
Also I'm laughing bc like one person got my references and I know this chapter may be confusing so I'm going to post links to the videos referenced. Take out the spaces.
(TTT: When the Beat Drops You Die: www. Youtube watch?v=V25aWzgAA_Y
TTT: Going Through the Stargate?: www. Youtube watch?v=yXPlZLGhBeo
Cry Plays: Catherine: www. Youtube watch?v=zke7gerUcck&list=PLeqwXTaiY-OwL70JNiDJ01OuUnr4mOvRj)
Also TTT is Trouble in Terrorist Town, a game in which all players are terrorists and one is selected to be the "traitor". The traitor's goal is to kill all other players; the other players' goal is to find out who the terrorist is and kill him/her.
Sorry if the chapter/story sucks I'm tired ya know. But I tried my best.
Please leave a review if you enjoyed! It helps me to know what you guys want or like and to be able to update faster. Plus I reply to all of them that aren't on Anon. Speaking of: to the Anon reviewer that didn't want Tori in the fic, I don't normally do love triangles, so you have nothing to worry about in that respect. Tori's not a threat to Bade at all… trust me. ;)
Next Chapter: the one person who hasn't been in this fic yet, some more GTA, Prop Hunt, and the confrontation of feelings.