Disclaimer: The show Victorious, its characters and other associated copyrights are property of someone else and not me.

Start from scratch

Chapter 35 - Jade's on the case

Here is a long one and I hope you enjoy.

No One's POV.

"Hi daddy I need to talk to you. It's very important.…..Uhh….not sure how to say this, but I think Jade, Barbie and I have just pissed off a shitload of heavily armed, doomsday cultists. What do we do?"

Right after that, Tori put her phone on speaker and placed it on the table so the others could hear her father's response.

It was hysterical laughter.

Jade shook her head. "We are so going to die."

"I don't want to die." Replied Cat with a fearful look.

Barbie then put her arm around the red haired girl. "Don't worry Kitty Cat, I'll keep you safe."

Tori and Jade looked at each other and mouthed. "Kitty Cat?"

Before however they could inquire about that, David Vega stopped laughing. "That's real good Tori, is there anything else you need?"

"Dad. I'm not kidding, this is not a joke, the cultists are real and I imagine they are quite upset by what we did."

Hearing the fear creep into Tori's voice made Mr. Vega realize this was no joke. "Tori what are you talking about?"

"Well….Our friend Cat had gone to college in Boston and fell in with this…." And so Tori told the tale of Cat falling in with a religious cult run by Reverend Mike and how she was ultimately rescued. Before Tori could get to the weapons part, Mr. Vega exploded.

"YOU STAGED A KIDNAPPING AND TOOK A PERSON ACROSS STATE LINES, DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE FED'S COULD DO TO YOU…NOT TO MENTION…"

Mr. Vega continue to yell at Tori for committing a federal offence for the next two minutes, causing Tori to cry. Jade naturally put her arm around the Latina to comfort her.

"Daddy! I was helping Cat and I got permission from her parents."

David started to yell again but was swiftly and loudly cut off by Jade. "Mr. Vega, shut the fuck up. Ok, we broke a few federal laws, big friggen deal. Look these people are probably looking for us and they have a storehouse full of military weapons, including Javelin missiles, claymore mines and lord knows what. So what do we do!"

Hearing the words Javelin Missles and Claymore mines very quickly sobered up the police officer.

"You said they have weapons, military weapons?"

Tori wiped her tears and answered. "Yes, both in the church on campus and it seems at their camp. Cat saw dozens of boxes of machine guns, missiles, plastic explosives and lord knows what. It's all real and literally a block away from a college campus. "

Mr. Vega then proceeded to ask Cat a number of questions about the boxes and what was written on them. Having done a 3 year stint in the army out of high school, he was quite familiar with ammo boxes looked like. As Cat described them, Mr. Vega felt a creeping sense of horror as he realized that Cats descriptions were exactly what weapons containers were supposed to look like.

Now sounding deadly serious, he said. "Tori, where are you right now!"

"Were in a sports bar by Times square. It's called the 5th Quarter."

"Ok, stay where you are and don't leave. Just eat, drink and act normal. I need to call my Captain about this right now. I'll call you back. Everything will be alright. Goodbye."

The phone call ended and about a minute later she got a text from Trina.

I have a party to show off my new hot boyfriend and you have to ruin it with a national emergency. Thanks. Oh yeah…be safe and if they shoot at you, use Jade as a shield.

Jade who had since overcome the initial shock of the situation, read the text and smirked. "She really doesn't like me doesn't she."

"She doesn't mean that, Jade."

"Yes she does. So since we're stuck here waiting to die, we might as well order. Anybody up for some buffalo wings? Let's go out and order extra spicy, shall we."

After a minute or two, Tori, Cat and Barbie recovered enough to at least try to resume the conversation. As Jade suggested the ordered buffalo wings and did what they were told; stay put.

About 25 minutes later, as they were about halfway through their order of buffalo wings, Tori's father called. Tori quickly answered and put it on speaker.

"Tori? Are you all there?"

"Yes Daddy, we're all here and fine. Did they believe you?"

"Yes and I hope your right, because my call put the Boston Police and the FBI into a near state of panic. Do know, if you're wrong I'll be writing parking tickets until I retire."

"No daddy, we're right. So what do we do?"

"Sit tight, the FBI wants to speak to you and is sending a car for you all. They'll be there in less than 15 minutes. Just stay cool and wait. Tori you could have gone to me first."

"Sorry daddy, I was worried that you wouldn't help. Jade was determined and I just had to take charge to make sure it went well.'

"Do you need me to stay on with you?"

"No, we'll be fine."

"Are you sure?"

"yes."

"Keep in touch Tori and call if you need anything."

Once David Vega hung up, Jade quipped. "You realize we're about to go to the local FBI office and admit to kidnapping. I hope none of you have anything planned the next 60 years."

Cat quickly squeaked in fear. "Dear lord Jesus, I don't want to go to jail."

Once again Barbie reassured her. "Don't worry Kitty Cat. You'll be fine, only us three will go to prison. You can stop by on visiting day."

Cat clapped her hands. "Oh goodie."

Exactly 12 minutes later 2 black FBI van's, with lights and sirens blazing came zooming up and stopped in in front of the sports bar. Then no less than 6 FBI agents came in and escorted them out and took them down to the local FBI headquarters.

There, the girls were ushed into an interrogation room with serious looking female FBI agent named Barnes and her partner, a male named Harrison who began to ask them questions. Looking at the mirror on the wall, she knew others would be watching.

Initially they asked about their backgrounds, what had happened, leading up to them coming to new York. Jade strongly suspected that while extremely concerned about the cult and the weapons, didn't fully believe them. In fact, Jade was certain that Barnes didn't believe them at all, as he looked visibly skeptical.

Jade, Cat and the others kept telling the story of Cat's involvement with the cult and eventual rescue. They also asked about the cult itself and Reverent Mike, aka grant. They stuck to their story and after a full hour had gotten the whole thing out.

By then there was a knock on the door and a moment later a FBI agent handed Barnes a folder.

Agent Barnes took out photos from the folder and placed them on the table. They looked like pictures of ammo boxes.

"Now Miss Valentine, did you see anything that looked like these?"

Cat then carefully looked at the pictures and started to point out various ones. With each one, Cat identified, Barnes would hold it up to the mirror so those could see it.

"I didn't look at each box, but…wait….I remember another box, I forgot about this one. It was pretty big. It was a different color; it was a blue metal case with red and green stripes on it. One the side it had something else marked on it. It said…..um….Yellow jacket. I thought it had something to do with bee's."

While Barnes and Harrison exchanged puzzled looks a urgent voice came over the loudspeaker. "Barnes, Harrison, I need to see you right now!"

After the FBI agents left the room, the girls exchanged puzzled looks, but otherwise could do nothing.

About 10 minutes later Barnes and Harrison returned with an older African American man who looked to be about 60.

The older man smiled and stepped forward. "Hello Ladies, I'm Assistant Director in Charge Ben Taylor and I'm in charge of the New York office. Pleased to meet you."

They all shook his hand and as they sat down, Jade spoke up. "If you're in here, I take it that the Yellow Jacket, Cat just mentioned is something of importance."

He nodded. "Quite correct. When we got the initial call from Officer Vega, we and the Boston Police were naturally very concerned. The Boston Police especially as they still have clear memories of the whole Boston Marathon incident. Now to be honest, some of us were skeptical of your claim, I have to include myself as one of them. "

"You believe us now though." Jade continued.

"Yes we do. What I'm about to tell you is not to leave this room. You won't be in trouble for kidnapping but if you saying I'm about to say, you will go to jail. The Yellow Jacket is a prototype anti-tank missile system; capable of taking out multiple vehicles at once. About 6 months ago, 4 prototype Yellow Jackets were being transported to our proving grounds in Arizona, to be tested. One of the trucks was hijacked and the prototype it was carrying was stolen. Miss Valentine has just described exactly, the case the stolen Yellow Jacket was in. Normally we'd start in investigation, get an undercover agent in the church and slowly build a case. But considering the amount of weapons Reverend Mike has procured and the fact he's in possession of the Yellow Jacket, we will be launching a raid on both the main church and the camp tonight. The pentagon wants the Yellow Jacket back and they want it back badly."

To Tori is sounded important, but one thing bugged her. "Just one prototype missile system and they want it back so badly? I can't imagine they have too many rounds for it."

Barbie quickly answered. "No, but as a prototype it would be worth a 10's of millions of dollars, to let's say the Chinese, the Russians or anyone else with the capability of making more. And that cash could buy any militia or terrorist group, enough conventional weapons to equip a small army. Am I right Director Taylor?"

"Precisely"

"So director Taylor, what's next?" Asked Jade.

"Cat mentioned that the cult has study group at 8:00 Pm Sunday's, which is today. It's 3:14 now, so we plan to raid them tonight during the study group when all are present."

Cat spoke up, looking a bit worried. "Most of them were brainwashed like me. They're good people, but they've just been mislead."

"Don't worry, we'll get everyone help. In the meantime, until we've launched our raid and got the situation under control, we're going to keep you here for your safety. You can wait in our main office, or if you like, we have a small employee's lounge and cafeteria downstairs. The food's crap but it is eatable. If we have any more questions, we'll let you know. But I must ask, do not try to leave and tell no one you are here. Miss Vega, we'll keep your father updated."

None of them liked it, Jade in particular, but they also knew they had no choice in the matter. So resigned to their fate, the wandered into the main office area and sat down in the adjoining lounge. It had a TV, some couches and a small kitchenette.

After about a half an hour Agent Barnes came up. "We've identified Reverend Mike."

"Who is he?" Asked Cat.

"Using the information Miss Valentine gave us, we identified him as Grant Meers. He's former a former member of a anti-government, white supremacist, militia group. He's also a convicted bank robber who apparently had a religious conversion in prison, but not the good kind. He started telling the other inmates god spoke directly to him, started his own little church there. He was released early from Prison about 9 years ago. Shortly after prison, he was suspected of taken part in an armored Car robbery that netted almost quarter of a million dollars. The other 2 suspects in the robbery were killed in a shootout with police. Meers was suspected of being the getaway driver, but he vanished and the money was never recovered. We think he used the money to buy a new identity and the church and the camp. He's probably been using his old militia contacts to either buy or sell the weaponry using the church as cover. The cult itself had done a great job of keeping a low profile. Other than a few complaints from parents saying they children stopped communicating, they stayed off the police radar. His wife, whose name is really Casey Sturm, is wanted in at least 2 states for check fraud and larceny."

Jade shook her head. "Like Beck, like Ace Decade, just a man wearing a mask. You rip it off and see the ugliness below."

The other girls nodded in agreement.

"Look Vega, I'm sorry I dragged you into this. I should have thought this out. I put you in danger, once again. Hurting you is the last thing I would ever want."

Tori then took Jade's hand and squeezed it briefly before letting go. "Jade I know you'd never do anything to hurt me. I knew there was a risk and I went through with it. I wanted my friend back too. We're in this together and together we will come through it. I won't leave you."

"Sounds like a promise."

"It is."

Jade smiled in return and returned to watching the TV in the lounge. Tori and Jade continued to watch a home improvement reality show while, Barbie and Cat sat on another couch and whispered to each other.

After an hour and a half, Tori got up and said. "I'm hungry, anyone want to join me at the FBI cafeteria."

Cat bound up from the couch, "I'll go. What about you Barbie?"

The blonde shook her head. "No thanks. I'm remaining parked on the couch."

"Jade?"

"No."

Tori and Cat then headed out towards the cafeteria, leaving only Jade and Barbie in the lounge. After a few more minutes, Jade had had enough of reality TV and wandered into the main office area. Barbie just kept watching.

Bored, Jade wanted through the office which at present was only half full. The people who were there, were all assembled around a large bulletin board at one end of the office. From what jade could see, it appeared to be some sort of briefing on the cult that Director Taylor was giving to the other agents.

"I wonder what It'd be like to work here." Jade thought as she sat at one of the desks, noting immediately the chair was very uncomfortable.

"Agent Jade West, FBI. I does have a nice ring to it." Jade said with a slight chuckle.

It was then, Jade spotted a stack of what appeared to be case files sitting in front of her. That caught Jade's attention, as case files meant crime scene photos Jade collected crime scene photos as it greatly appealed to her morbid nature.

Looking up, Jade could see all the other agents were distracted, so she pulled a case file off the stack. Flipping it open she could see it was a murder case. The victim was a 32 year old woman named Chelsea McNamara. Before her death, she worked as an accountant for the justice department, investigating the finances of the Russian mob. Someone apparently broke into her home and stabbed her to death, 8 months ago. According to the case file, the FBI has suspected the Russian Mob had her killed as a result of her work.

Jade paged through the notes and finally got to the crime scene photos. With her great interest she looked carefully at the pictures one by one, until something caught her eye.

"No fucking way!"

A few minutes later an irritated looking FBI agent with brown hair came up. "Um excuse me Miss West, I'm agent Goss and that's a confidential case file. Would you please put that back and return to the lounge. That's an important case and I can't have you screwing up the case file."

Jade huffed, slammed the case file shut and got up. "Fine, then I won't tell you who murdered Chelsea McNamara."

Agent Goss loudly scoffed, attracting the attention of several other agents who happened to be nearby. "You solved a case we've been working on for 8 months in 10 minutes."

Jade with a smirk, Jade walked over to Agent Goss. "Yes I did, fuckwit. You and your idiot partner have been shaking down every Russian mobster from here to Pittsburg, for the last 8 months, hoping to get a lead on who had her killed, In reality, the killer's been right under your nose, the whole fucking time."

Agent Goss, who had been since joined by his partner Agent Schneider along with several others, were all eyeing Jade with great distain.

"Ok, Miss detective, please enlighten us." Sneered Agent Goss.

Jade looked up at the assembled agents. "Now pay attention children, I'm only going to say this once. Russian mobsters do kill people, but it's a safe bet they don't stab people to death with scissors. Especially left handed ones."

Agent Goss, laughed mockingly. "Scissors? You must be joking."

After shooting Agent Goss the evil eye, Jade continued. "I'm a scissor expert, having been nearly obsessed with them since I was five. I also love all things horror and collect crime scene photos, so I'm an amateur expert in murder. Miss McNamara was not stabbed to death with a knife, but with a pair of scissors. According to my opinion, by the size and shape of the wounds, a pair of 10" fabric shears to be exact. Now I can see in these other photos, that the victim was big into sewing and belonged to a sewing club. You can see her machine and other sewing things in the room where she was found."

An agent in back then spoke up. "So the Russian mob hit man used a pair of scissors she owned. There were, several in her sewing area. "

"The victim did own scissors, but she was right handed. She however, was killed using a left handed scissors." Jade then held up one of the photos. "Now this is a picture of the Victim and her friends in her sewing club. In this picture, they are all at their sewing machines. There are 7 women in the club, 5 of them are old women who wouldn't have the strength to shove the blade in as deep or as often as it was. She was stabbed 12 times. But if you look at the one other member of the club who isn't young, her name is Kristin Weisenberg and she's the same age as the victim. If you pay attention to the group photo, Kristin is the only person who has her sewing materials on the left of her sewing machine. All the others have their materials on the right. Thus Kristin is left handed and almost certainly owns a pair of left handed fabric shears.

Jade then, who was enjoying putting Agent Goss to shame, gleefully held up the case notes. "The case notes state that Kristin was the victims best friend. It also says Kristin is married. The Victim was not. Now you can see Kristin is a larger woman, pushing 200 pounds and to be blunt, rather ugly. The Victim was very pretty and rather thin. You'll notice that in the photo's of the funeral, Kristin's husband looks especially distraught, but not as much as Kristin. I'm an actress and I can tell just by looking, that she's over acting. So, the victim was sleeping with Kristin's husband. Kristin found out, then in a fit of rage grabbed a pair of her scissors, went over to Chelsea McNamara's house and stabbed her to death. Then she made it look like a break in and you dum's dum's assumed it was a mob hit. This was a crime of passion, the Russian Mob had nothing to do with it. I'm sure the second you stick the cuff's on Kristin Weisenberg, she'll confess. Any questions?"

There was a moment of shocked silence, followed by applause from all the agents present, save Agent Goss and his partner. They in fact looked rather humiliated.

One of the other agents looked to Goss and his partner with scorn. "Nice one Goss, you and your partner have been spending 8 months on a case, this girl cracks in 10 minutes. "

Agent Goss, who appeared to be turning pale, looked to his partner. "Let's go and arrest Kristin Weisenberg."

As Goss and Schneider slunk away, one of the other agents exchanged nod's with his partner. He then stepped up and shook Jade's hand.

"Hi, I'm agent Paulson, and this is my partner, Agent Cumberland. Thanks for knocking Goss and Schneider down a couple of pegs, they're both assholes. I see you like to look at crime scene photos. We have others, for other unsolved cases, would you like to see them? Unofficially of course."

Jade lit up like a child on Christmas. "Would I!"

A little while later Cat and Tori came back up and re-entered they spotted Jade at a desk with 2 other FBI agents. They seemed to be going over something with great interest.

Puzzled, Tori walked up. "Jade what's going on?"

Agent Cumberland stepped forward, "You'll have to step back Miss Vega, we're working an important case."

At this point Jade said to the agents. "Ok, the killer is a white male who seems to know this predominantly black neighborhood like the back of his hand, yet no one recalls seeing him anywhere in the neighborhood at all. How is that?"

Not like being brushed off, not to mention horribly confused, Tori put her hands on her hips. "JADE WHAT IS GOING ON!"

"Sorry Vega, this scumbag has already strangled 3 women to death in Atlantic City. I've got to stop this serial killer before he strikes again. I'll be along later." Jade said in a serious matter of fact tone of voice.

Jade then turned to the FBI agents. "How could a white guy know the neighborhood so well, yet no one ever recalls seeing him. It's a city worker. It can't be a cop, as they get noticed. But what kind of city worker rarely gets paid attention to….A garbage man. And they know the neighborhoods they work, very well. I'll bet the killer is a garbage man who regularly works that neighborhood and has an extensive police record. "

Agent Paulson nodded. "Damn right, I'll run the city workers and see what pops up."

Both dumfounded, Tori and Cat just wandered back into the lounge where Barbie was waiting.

"Barbie, I took Cat to the cafeteria and half an hour later, I come back and Jade's joined the FBI, am I right or have I just gone nuts."

"No, Jade just got bored and decided to solve some crimes. I could see it from here. She solved the first one in like 10 minutes. She totally made the one asshole FBI agent look like a fool. She's apparently an expert on all things scissor and murderer related."

Half in a daze, Tori nodded and sat down. "Of course she is. First she brings down a record producer, then a cult, now she's after a serial killer. What's next?"

Sitting there, Tori tied to make sense of the fact that Jade had now seemingly joined the FBI and was now solving crimes. However it didn't make much sense at all. It had already been a strange day, but now it was getting downright surreal.

An hour and half later, a pouting Jade returned to the lounge and sat down.

"What's wrong Jade?" Asked Tori.

"One of the supervising agents made me stop. Something about not being official FBI agent and I wasn't supposed to do that. Plus what I was doing was technically evidence tampering, though in my defense, I never opened any of the evidence bags. They're just jealous because I was making them look bad. I was right about Kristin Weisenberg, the second they arrested her, she confessed. I nearly had that Gaianelli case figured out until they stopped me, something about the way her neck was slashed was odd. That's really going to bug me now."

Tori simply could not believe what she was hearing. "How many did you solve?"

Jade shrugged. "I don't know, The McNamara murder case, the Atlantic City Strangler and a couple of others, though one doesn't really count as it was only a stolen Picasso. I helped them figure out where the thief hid it. Nobody even got killed there. Total waste of my time."

Strange or not, Tori knew Jade stopped some serious bad guys. So smiled, hugged Jade and gave her a kiss. "My hero. Fighting crime, kicking ass and taking names."

Oddly, it was Tori's praise that lifted her spirits right back up as Tori's praise was the only one that really mattered. "Thank you."

Nothing else do to, they sat and waited. Finally 8:00 rolled around and the girls were told that agents were now swarming both the Camp and the church.

Thankfully it was all over in minutes, with not a single shot fired. Reverend Mike, his wife were quickly apprehended and placed under arrest. All the other cult members were taken into custody for deprogramming and a large supply of military weapons, including the Yellow Jacket were recovered.

Once that was done, the 4 girls were quickly debriefed, told never to mention the Yellow Jacket again and driven home.

Once at home, Tori and Jade who were tired from their long and strange day collapsed on the couch.

"Ok, Jade you destroyed the Evil record producer, got my career back, rescued Cat, brought down the cult and fixed my life. Not to mention solving several murders and helping to recovering a stolen Picasso, which I still don't get. So unless you want to find my Siamese Cat, Pepper, who ran away when I was 7, you're out of things in my life to fix. I guess you'll have to keep working on fixing yourself."

Jade put her hand to her chin. "So where was pepper last seen?"

Tori then laughed and punched Jade in the shoulder. "Stop that!"

Taking a chance, Jade took Tori's hand. "I'd do anything for you. I owe you everything."

"Jade are you afraid we won't be together? I get that feeling sometimes."

The Goth silently nodded.

"Jade, you and I have a bond that goes beyond friendship. I feel it growing every day. I know the future is uncertain, but I know, I know for a fact, that our bond will keep growing and will bring us closer and closer. I have faith in that bond, I have faith in us. You're impatient and a bit scared, I'm too, but when the moment comes to take the next step, we'll both know it. It's coming, I promise."

"Sorry if my faith falters at time, I've been burned and it's hard for me to let go."

Tori got up, continuing to hold Jade's hand. "I know, but whenever you falter, I will be there to catch you. I promise."

"Can you guarantee I'd do the same?"

Tori smiled and after letting go of Jade's hand, gently caressed her check. "I know you'd do the same, or at least do your best to try and that's all that matters. Good night Jade."

Well, the cult is out of business, Tori and Jade have sort of confirmed they will always be together and Jade out of sheer boredom, solved a bunch of crimes. Something she found out she has a knack for.