Author's Note: Again, I have never really kickboxed (though I did do some martial art the teacher called kung fu for a while), so if anything is wrong, please let me know and I'll fix it.
This whole thing is turning out to be longer than I had expected, since I still have ideas. I can't promise how regularly I'll update in the next few weeks due to a hectic schedule, exams coming up, and a trip to a music festival that's been planned for months (Rockharz anyone?), but I'll try not to let you guys go too long without a new chapter.
Thanks for the reviews and enthusiasm for my first fanfiction. You guys are great!

I fully intended to get a new tattoo when I told Beck about it.

"Hey, babe." He leaned on the wall beside my locker. "Want to do a movie night at my place tomorrow night?"
"I already have plans. Cat wanted to have a girl's night out, back when Vega kissed Cat's boyfriend and we were sick, and she wouldn't stop bugging me about it until I promised. Can we do Saturday instead?" I unloaded the books I needed for my next two classes (and last of the day, thank God) into my bag before slamming the door shut.
"Sure. What are you girls doing?"
"I want to get some tattoo work done."
"Cool. What'll it be?"
"I was thinking of putting some extra touches on my butterflies, and getting something new: a burnt rose being snipped into little bits with scissors."
"Where?"
"On the side of my neck, with the stem curling around my neck and shoulder a little." Gathering my hair to one side, I traced the line vaguely from behind my right ear down and around the back of my neck.
"Cool." He nodded. "Should I tape that one Lifetime film you were interested in?"
"Yes, please. I have the DVR at home set up, but I don't know if Mom or Jacob will tamper with it while I'm gone. Despite the fact I plastered it with pink Post-Its specifically saying not to touch it."
Just thinking about it annoyed me. I wish my locker was open so I could slam it shut now, but I settled for simply pounding my fist on my locker door, in the one spot that was scissor-free. It had a dent there, accumulated from a great deal of previous abuse.
"All right. You and Cat have fun."
"I will." I pulled him close for a kiss. Then the stupid bell rang. Running my hand down his chest—yes, I like the fact my boyfriend has muscles—I turned to head to chemistry class.

That evening, though, Cat wasn't too happy with the idea of going to a tattoo parlor again. I couldn't really blame her, but I wasn't happy about my plans being changed.

"Jadeeyy." Her voice was high and nasally in my ear, so I held the phone at a distance. "I don't wanna go watch you get ink put under your skin again. That was gross. I wanna go sing. I heard there's this new place that does karaoke, and it sounds really cool, and I want to go there."
"Last time wasn't that bad, Cat. Quit whining."
"I wanna sing, though. Singing's fun. You haven't sung with me in forever, Jade."
With a sigh—and an admission to myself that what she'd said was true—I said, "All right. Do you know the name of this club?"
"Karaoke-Dokie. Isn't that so clever?"
"Yeah. Really clever." I didn't really mean it, but sarcasm goes over Cat's head most of the time. I pulled my laptop over to where I was sitting on my bed, and quickly pulled up their webpage. "It looks decent. I pick the song."
"You always pick things!"
"Yeah, because you can never keep your mind made up for more than two seconds!"
"That's so true. This morning, I couldn't decide whether I wanted an orange or a mango for breakfast, and stood there for twenty minutes until my brother stuffed a banana into my mouth."
"You should've picked the mango. Mangos are the best."
"I know you like them best."
"Mhm. Okay, I've got to hang up now."
"Awwwww!"
"Cat, you need to work on your history presentation, and I've got stuff to write for Drama and Lit."
"I don't like history! I have enough to deal with with stuff that happens now!"

"Well, this is something happening now. Your history project. Go. We can't go and sing karaoke tomorrow night if you don't have everything done."
"Okay." Her tone was crestfallen, but I didn't really care. It was for her own good, anyways. "I'll go do it."
"Get Robbie to help if you need it."
"No!" I could hear the gasp in her voice. "I can't call him. I just can't!"
"Fine! I'll look over it tomorrow before we go to the club."
"Thanks Jadey!"
"How many times have I told you not to call me that?"
"I don't know."
"Well, don't!"
"Okay. Bye, Jade."
"Bye, Cat."

I already had most of my script done. I also did about half of my essay on Macbeth before going downstairs and trouncing my little brother at his assassin videogame. It would have been cool to do that sort of thing in real life, but I had already decided prison wasn't my thing. I do possess some modicum of restraint. Not much, though.

So that's how we ended up at Karaoke-Dokie on Friday night. And ran across those ganks. And participated in that travesty of a karaoke "competition".

"That was so unfair! I thought we were gonna win. We were really good."
Cat was sniffing a little between her ineffective little growls, so I tossed her a pack of tissues, which she didn't catch. Her "special vitamins" made her slow on the uptake and over-emotional sometimes. Still, I was grinding my teeth, so I couldn't exactly criticize.
"I—I wanted to win. They were mean. And they weren't good! Anyone could hear that."
"I know! You don't have to remind me!"Out of frustration I blared my horn at the car in front of me, because the driver was fixing her lip gloss or occupying herself with some other inane thing instead of getting out of my way at a green light.
"And you don't have to remind me!"
"You were the one talking about it, Cat!"
"Aaaugh!" Cat covered her ears, only taking one hand off them to wipe her nose on occasion. I sighed. A nice night out for both of us was turning out to be utter crap.

At my place I shoved Cat in front of the TV with my brother—she loved the little fairies in that Zelda game of his, and sometimes he let her play tennis on the Wii—and went up to my room to plot. In my world, we got mad, then we got even, and Cat wouldn't be of any help getting even tonight.

The idea for an audience-judged competition, with the untalented pair being tricked into picking a good singer disguised as an Ugly Betty as their opponent, came almost immediately. It took a while before I convinced myself that showing up those wannabes was more important than hating Tori Vega for the moment—even though she'd called me a gank the day before and Beck cared about whether she was around or not.
The fact was, however, I wasn't on voluntary speaking—or even voluntary insulting—terms with anyone who could both sing and be made to look hideous. Andre could sing, but I didn't think even Cat could disguise him to look as disgusting as he needed to, and Beck—just no. My boyfriend in a vomit-inducing look was not anything I ever wanted to see, just because. And like I said, there's only so much you can do to try to hide "hot" and "cool".
I was relying on Cat's support to convince Tori, though, since the brunette would probably be more than happy I'd been shown up. Cat and the fact that Vega probably didn't want to be stuck with her drama queen of a sister whom I didn't even want to imagine after getting her wisdom teeth out.

"That doesn't sound very honest."
"Well, was it honest to make us think the karaoke would be fairly judged when the guy just picked his daughter and her friend?"
"I guess not… no, no it wasn't." Said with a firm shake of her head.
So I outlined the plan to her.
"How do we know they'll pick Tori?"
"We'll make her look like a total loser. You already made her look like a zombie, how hard can this be?"
"I can do that. But that still doesn't answer my question."
"Those two ganks will pick the person who looks least like they'll win. They'll want to win themselves, so they'll pick someone to go against them who they think sucks. Try to stay with me, Cat."
"I am with you! I got it now."
"Okay. Remember, you'll have to act like you don't know about Vega and who she really is."
"Her name's Tori. You might want to be nice to her tomorrow when she goes to sing."
"Yeah, whatever."

My mother looked sideways at the three of us in the living room later—Cat using my makeup on Jacob to get a feel for how she wanted to do Tori up later, and me on the sidelines watching with a smirk. After being reassured that the stuff washed off—and that I had double-checked the warning on Cat's supplies—and that Jake was okay with this and I hadn't tied him down or threatened him in any way—she shrugged slightly and left us to our own devices.

My brother was happy to be made up as "the Thing" (apparently some kind of rock golem) afterward—his reward for his cooperation. Cat was happy to mess around with my hair later—under the stipulation she didn't do anything that couldn't be undone with a shower—and to have our own little dance hall and karaoke night in my bedroom. I was happy envisioning the girls from the club disgraced and humiliated, and snipping sheets of paper into various patterns before burning then with one of the lighters from my collection (accomplished while Cat was playing with my hair).

And I was nice to Vega the next day. I bought food, after Cat had convinced me frozen yogurt would be better than donuts. I should have known not to listen to that girl's advice on food.

"What kinds of ganks are your parents, anyways, to saddle you with… that?" I jerked my head back towards the Vega house, which was rapidly disappearing in my rear-view mirror.
"Ja-ade! What did I say about being nice?" Cat's whine came from the backseat.
"What? It's just a question."
Vega sighed and shook her head. "I can understand that they don't want to deal with Trina while she's miserable. She's bad enough when she's feeling good."
"Why do you take it?" I couldn't fathom putting myself through that.

I don't mind taking care of Jacob when he's sick. Then again, it's an excuse for me to get out of school and have a parental note to show for it, and he's a docile little thing when he's feeling under the weather, mostly content to sleep the whole day.
He's far better trained than Trina. She needed a good kick in the ass.

"Well, what choice do I have?" Vega's tone was frustrated. "Dad will get pissed or ground me or something—probably take away my phone for a week—because I didn't do what he said."
"So? There are ways around that."
"Maybe for a chronic villain like you. I'm a good girl, Jade, and I like it that way."
"You try to be. And look where it gets you." I smirked and gave the road my full attention again.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her look slightly disturbed before she stared out of the window.

The coup went off without a hitch. The ganks fell for Vega's disguise, Vega was happy with me for getting her out of Trina-sitting, Cat was happy dancing, and I was left with mixed feelings about it all. After tossing Beck's keys back to him and giving him a kiss on the cheek, I left the club.
I knew he wasn't happy with me for sticking him with that girl no one likes and everyone likes even less when she's miserable, but I hoped he'd forgive me. I'd have to think about how to make it up to him.
At that moment, however, I was just glad my kickboxing gym was open 24/7.

"Heya, tough girl." Aaron nodded to me on my way in. I just tossed my bag with my gear on the bench with a quick nod in his direction.
"Need to work something out on the bag? I've done it more than once myself."
"Shut up."
He just laughed. I had gotten used to the fact that I didn't scare most of the guys at the gym—then again, they were all about five or ten years older than I was. That didn't mean I liked it.
Tying my hair back, I forewent gloves and made a beeline for the punching bags at the back.
Aaron shook his head. "Just clean up the blood afterward, kiddo."
"Yeah, yeah, I know the drill."

It wasn't the first time I had thrown myself at the bags or pads without gloves and come away with sore and bloody knuckles, and it wouldn't be the last.
Eventually I sunk into that semi-drowsy state where my body operated on autopilot—right jab, left hook, roundhouse kick—and my thoughts wandered. That "zone" was as close to calm as I'd ever gotten. I tended to let my lips voice whatever thought came across my mind.

"I can still beat any gank out there." Take a breath.
"At their own game." The bag swung back towards me. I met it with my heel.
"They just better watch out." Left cross. Breathe again.
"Eventually I'll figure out how to deal with Victoria Vega, too." I let my breath out, controlled, as I peppered the bag with a series of jabs.
"Whatever the hell her game is." I was Jade Catherine West, wasn't I?