Author Notes: As I showed many times during this saga, Jade and Tori are no doubt good parents but I often neglect to point out that they're famous, although I think that's implied, heh.
Nevertheless, fame clearly hasn't gotten to their heads, so that's a good thing and they certainly have taught their kids the value of hard work but now it's their turn to learn the true value of a dollar.
"Hey Mom."
"Hey Danielle." Jade greeted, not taking her eyes from her son as he continued playing in the inflatable pool with his many toys.
"Watch out Wonder Woman, here comes Godzilla!" Tony shouted dramatically one moment only to make his voice higher the next in order to pretend to be his favourite super hero "Never fear Wondy is here! Boom! Oof! Darn!"
"That's my boy, he has quite the active imagination." Jade smirked proudly. "So, Dani, need anything? Because I can't leave your brother alone for long, plus I want to see how the latest adventure from his mind ends."
"Actually Mom, I kind of need your help with something."
"Kind of?"
"Yeah, see, I just got my report and I need you to sign it." Danielle said. "I would have asked Mama but she's been busy all week at the studio and by the time she comes home it's pretty late."
"I know." Jade said. "Lately the only time we spend together is when I give her a massage after a long day."
"Ok, eww." Her daughter made a face of mild disgust. "Whatever you and Mama do in the bedroom, keep it in the bedroom... Anyway getting back to my report card, I need your autograph... I mean your signature otherwise I can't go to the School's field trip next week... Oh! I also need you to sign my permission form while you're at it."
"Ok let's see how well you did this semester." Jade said as she grabbed the paper, she puts on her reading glasses. "Where is this field Trip anyway?"
"Water Park." Danielle quickly said, she was technically saying the truth, she just conveniently left out the part about visiting the Aquarium, after all she didn't want her Mom to freak out about seeing the dolphins, to this day she still had a phobia of them.
"It's not a phobia, I just don't trust how they swim." Would always be Jade's reply when her fear was brought up.
"You did good Danielle." The former Goth said. "Except with Spanish... You got a C, what happened here?"
"That's because my Spanish teacher is out to get me, Mom!" She defended herself. "Just because I simply corrected her a few times on her pronunciation and always gives me the hardest assignments and even when I pass them with flying colors, she's so petty that while she will give me a passing grade, she will never give me a grade that will say I'm smart or in this case smarter than her."
"Boy does that bring back memories." Jade grunted. "Back when I was in High School, I remember blackmailing the vice principal for being such an asshole which is something you shouldn't do by the way... What you can do is remember that the best revenge is being happy, this "C" is nothing more than a sign of jealousy, don't let people like that get to you, just move forward and when people try to get under your skin just ignore them since they feed on your reaction, and above all; when you work, it's good to work hard but sometimes you just need to work smarter."
"Speaking from experience Mom?"
"Actually your Mama taught me part of that lesson." Jade admitted sheepishly. "When we first met I tried to make her angry more times than I can count."
"Woah, seriously?"
"Um hum." She confirmed. "I'm not proud of it now but in the end my revenge schemes did backfire on me a few times and when they did succeed... Well Tori showed she was a better person than me."
"And now you're married to me." Tori said fondly. "Funny how things work out."
"Mama!"
"Vega! I thought you would be busy till at least midnight?"
" I got off work early." Tori said, giving her wife a kiss. "Long story short, the director forgot it was his wife's birthday and is trying to do damage control."
"MAMA!" Tony said happily, finally looking up from his toy boat "I'm playing Wonder Woman against Godzilla! Rawww! Wondy's winning!"
"I can see that Mijo." She chuckled. "Having fun?"
"YEAH!"
"By the way Dani, I'll talk to your Spanish teacher." Tori said darkly "I'm sure she would love to explain to me why she gave you that C."
"Vega, I never found you more attractive than I do now."
"Ew... Mom please don't say that while I'm here... That's just gross."
"I don't get it." Tony said innocently "What's gross?"
"Just keep playing with yourself Mijo." Tori said distractedly until she realised what she unintentionally suggested "I mean... Play with your toys!... I mean..."
"My, my, my Vega, making innuendos?" Jade say coyly "And Here I thought you were a prude."
"JADE!"
Minutes later Danielle returned to the room she shared with her sister.
"So, you got them?" Tawny asked.
"I did." Her Twin replied, showing both papers in her hand. "But it came with a price... What I heard can't be unheard."
"Huh?"
"Trust me, you don't what yo know." Danielle shuddered "But anyway my part of the job is done, now you just have to do yours."
"I want to go on record that I'm not comfortable with this." Tawny said. "It feels... Wrong."
"I hardly think so Sis." Danielle said. "But if it makes you feel better, Mom did say that we can work smarter, not harder."
"You sure she said that?"
"Eh, potato, potatoes." She shrugged. "Point is, after we use these babies, they will be our ticket for that new car we wanted."
"Yeah... About that, I just sold last month's report cards online." Tawny said. "Can't believe someone paid over four grand each for our parents signature."
"The perks of having famous parents, Sis." Danielle said. "Just a few more signatures from them and we'll be able to go anywhere we want without having to always either carpool or borrow our parents cars.!"
"Shh, not so loud!" Tawny said. "We don't want them to hear!"
"Relax, what could go wrong?"
Later that night when everyone was getting ready for bed, Jade's phone went off, the former Goth groaned in annoyance, she was already under the covers of her warm bed, her first instinct was to ignore whoever was calling, so she simply pressed ignore, only for it to go off again soon after, which in turn made Jade turn off her phone.
"Finally."
She however sung victory a little too quickly as her wife's phone went off, since Tori was down the hall reading their son a bedtime story, she was missing the cheerful tune that repeatedly made Jade slowly go crazy, her left eye twitching uncontrollably, she was seconds away from throwing the device out the window only to stop at the last minute since she remembered at the nick of time that destroying her spouse's phone would lead to a bigger problem, so groaning in resignation, Jade answered the call.
"WHAT?!"
"Hi Jadey!"
"Ugh... Of course." The Thespian cursed under her breath. "Cat, there better be a good reason for you to call at this hour of the night, or I swear on your future grave I'm going to kill you!"
"But Jadey this is important!" Cat squeaked. "Are you having money problems?"
"The Hell are you talking about Shapiro?!"
"Language!" The former redhead gasped. "I'm just asking because I saw the unicorn drawing you drew for that show long ago online, it even has your signature and everything! You know how much I liked that drawing, how can you sell it? Whatever the highest bidder is giving, I'll double it!"
"Cat, I have no idea what you're talking about." Jade hissed. "It's late and I just want to sleep, whatever crap you want to babble about can wait till morning and clearly you haven't taken your special vitamins, so go and do that before going to bed, maybe then you'll start making more sense."
"But Jadey... I want that unicorn!"
"If it means I can go to bed, I'll buy you a giant stuffed one first thing in the morning." Jade snapped "Good night Cat!"
She finally hangs up.
"I swear, Cat's more like a third daughter than a friend." Jade groaned before closing her eyes. "Technically a first."
Ping.
Her blue eyes turned red at that moment, The pale woman was ready to kill, she grabbed the phone ready to give her friend some colorful words, only to stop in her tracks when she noticed a screenshot of a very familiar drawing of a unicorn.
"That's the one I made years ago!" She realised. "For that role of Gigi... What the fuck is it doing on an online auction?"
"I want it!" Cat texted. "I'll pay triple!"
"Cat, the drawing is not for sale."
"Aww."
Jade narrowed her eyes, being unable to see who was selling the drawing, so she had to put her reading glasses in order to get a better picture.
D-West23.
Having her first lead, Jade went to the same page the auction was taking place, to her surprise, it turned out that the unicorn drawing wasn't the only thing for sale, she also noticed the autographs of her and Tori, but what surprised her the most were that her daughters report cards had been sold recently.
"What... The... Fuck?!"
"Jade, what going on!" Tori yelled from down the hall "I can hear you all the way from Tony's room! And how many times do I have to tell you to watch out what comes out of your mouth!"
"Vega... Did you know our names are worth a lot of money? And I don't just means professionally."
"What are you talking about baby?"
It's best if I show you." The Thespian yells back. "Then you're going to get a clearer picture of what I mean... A much clearer... Clearer picture... And I think I know where to start looking who is behind this little get rich scheme."
"Another day, another autograph sold." Danielle said happily. "Who knows, if we keep this up we may be able to buy more than just a car."
"I think the car will be more than enough." Tawny said worriedly. "I mean, let's say reach our goal, how are we going to explain to Mom and Mama where we got the money?"
"We tell them the truth."
"Really?"
"No you dingus!" Her sister snapped. "We lie! We tell them we got the car in a contest or something, I don't know about you but I doubt our parents would be happy with us if we told them we been capitalising on their names."
"You're not wrong about that."
The twins felt a chill going down their spines, they slowly turned around to their bedroom door to the displeased look of their mothers.
"You two have a lot of explaining to do." Jade said ominously. "And there better be a good explanation for you two selling our family memories."
"Family memories?" Danielle repeated. "It's junk, mom! You told us more than once, we didn't think it was a big deal."
"No, you didn't think it was a big deal!" Tawny corrected frantically. "I told you I wasn't sure about this."
"Don't help me sis." Danielle said sarcastically.
"We don't care who came up with this scheme." Tori said. "What We want to know is why you thought it was a good to sell things with so much sentimental value to us! Yes it's junk but its sentimental junk! That unicorn drawing was a part of your Mom's first serious role after high school!"
"But mom said she hated that drawing." Danielle said meekly. "We didn't think you would miss it."
"You thought wrong." Jade said crossing her arms. "Everything your Mama and I have kept over the years hold a great deal of value to us, that drawing is more than just a unicorn to me, it holds memories of what I went through to make it, Tori was behind me trying to finish it in time for shooting and your report cards?! How do you think we felt when we saw them being sold online! They're like photos to us! We saw your struggles with certain subjects and how we helped you overcome them!"
"Your Mom is right." Tori agreed. "I saw when Tawny was struggling in science and what did we do? I spend an entire afternoon with you so you would be ready for the test, remember that sweetie?"
Tawny nodded.
"Oh and let's not forget that I just noticed this being auctioned." Jade said darkly, showing her daughters the Wonder Woman toy doll that belongs to their little brother. "Care to explain that!"
"Wait... What?!" The sisters yelled out in shock, grabbing their mom's phone and much to their mutual horror noticed that they indeed were about to give away one of their brother's favourite toys.
"I... We... I.. Didn't notice." Danielle said. "Did you?"
"No... I didn't." Her sister shook her head. "Guess we didn't care what we sold on,I be as long as we got the money we wanted."
"We can see that.." Jade said evenly. "Girls I know I told you before that it's ok to work smarter but this... There's no other way of saying it, this was stealing."
The twins gasped in horror, they clearly hasn't realised that until now.
"We're sorry Mom...Mama..." Danielle said remorseful "We... I... Didn't see it that way... I just wanted a car so badly I guess I didn't care how I went about it to get the money and dragged Tawny into this."
"I can see your sorry sweetie.. Tori said but that doesn't excuse what you did."
"I know." Danielle replied. "What can we do?"
"First of all you're going to get everything back and I mean everything." Jade said. "Then you're going to refund everyone's money and last but not least, you two are grounded for three months."
The twins didn't argue, they simply lowered their heads and said at the same time. "We will mom."
"Good." The Thespian said curtly. "You can start tomorrow, right now we need to go to bed, all of us."
Both Jade and Tori left their daughters room without another word but nothing they could say would make the young teens feel any worse than they already felt.
After all the look of disappointment in their parents eyes hurt a lot more than words ever could.
This started out on a happy note but ended up in a mood of sadness, truth be told, I originally had planned for Jade and Tori to Ironically be amazed of how much money their names held but went an entirely different way as I thought a lesson held more weight on this chapter than something comically silly.
So, anyway, what did you guys thought of this? As always constructive criticism is greatly welcomed.
Invader Johnny Signing Off.