Disclaimer: You won't see too many full disclaimers after the first chapter. In fact, probably only one's as short as this. Telling you I don't own the characters, just the chiz I come up with on my own. This is your belated warning. Also, I don't own Victorious or any of it's characters.

:}

A short time after leaving project Redemption, Jade found herself in the special, modified police car Blue Steel drove. "Don't let Masters attitude get you down." The hero told her. "It's only bad at first. In time, once he see's your willing to do the program, he'll lighten up. Believe me, we need a guy like him riding heard on the kind of prospects we get in Project Redemption."

"How many prospects?" Jade asked.

"Maybe a dozen potentials have been in and out of the program, maybe more." The hero said. "And it takes a man like Masters to keep them focused. I know, he tends to lean heavily on the stick, but there's a carrot out there, in the form of you earning your freedom, your record clean, able to go out and peruse your dreams."

"Funny, I get the feeling he wants to break me." Jade said, watching the man for reactions.

"He does." Blue Steel said, surprising her with his honesty. "But again, that's because he doesn't know you. He just knows a criminal has been delivered to him. But trust me, you cannot survive in probation, especially not in youth probation, if you can't take your clients side occasionally. He just needs to see you're trying so he believes you can be redeemed. Then, you'll find he's all in, and will help you be the best person you can be."

Jade felt her eyes roll, hiding it by looking out the window. 'He's lying, but he's not admitting that to himself. Guy must have his reasons, and yea, I get it. I go to the same school as his darling kids. But that Masters guy, I don't see him having that cuddly side.'

"One other thing." Blue Steel added. "Once you earn the right to be my sidekick, we'll work on building trust between us. I may need to be able to trust you with everything, including who I really am." He gave a second for the weight of that statement to sink in, the launched forward. "So, before we hit the streets together, I'm gonna wanna be solid on your motivations. Is this just to avoid going to prison, or are you willing to be something more then a criminal?"

"I'm motivated to not let my grandfather down." Jade said. "I just need a fair chance, and I'll prove I'm capable of keeping a secret."

"But can you enforce the law?" The hero asked. "Look, we're at your place already. Not a great neighborhood, but not as bad as it could be, so lets just drop it, kay? I won't judge, and you'll... Just, know I'll be checking in on you from time to time. I have my job to do, but if we're gonna be working together, we should get used to me keeping an eye on you."

"Sure." Jade said, opening the door.

His hand shot out, taking her by the wrist. "One other thing." Blue Steel said. "I'll be referring to you as Dahlia, or Black Dahlia, from now on. We need to be used to calling one another by our code-names."

"Goody." Jade deadpanned. "Can I go? I have a mountain of homework to do."

"Yea, you go do your homework, keep you grades up." He said, letting her go.

'The way he said that, he meant that last part.' Jade realized. 'As conflicted as he is, he doesn't want me to fail. He just doesn't want me to succeed either. He doesn't get it, for me, right now, either I fail, and my life goes one way, or I succeed, and my life goes the other. So, Jade, get your work done, then see what the spirit world has to say about how I'm gonna succeed when Masters only wants to break me, and that's not something I can allow. Not if I want the future I'm fighting for.'

Jade settled down to do her homework. It wasn't as much as she'd hinted, because avoiding people during the school day gave her time to focus on getting her work done. She'd also been unusually motivated, since doing the work took her mind off the problems of being alone. Only, now she was tempted to visit her friends, if only to say goodbye. 'If Sikowitz hadn't volunteered to be my mentor, I'd be gone, and no one would be the wiser. I'd have been the girl who couldn't handle it, and ran off. Gods, do I owe Sikowitz a favor now?' The thought plagued her, but not long. Jade busied herself correcting the many mistakes her worried mind had let slip through, keeping her busy longer then normal.

The next thing Jade did was watch the directors cut of the Scissoring. She wasn't really in the mood for the blood and gore, but realized it may not be too long before she wouldn't have a choice of what she watched. 'I'm gonna fail, and be sent to jail, all because they don't want me to succeed.' Rage and self pity warred in her body, giving her bouts of energy too strong to sit through, followed by moments where she couldn't have stood up if her life depended on it. Overall, Jade felt wrecked, and wondered how she was going to get any sleep that night.

Jade soon felt too tired to stay up any later, and too wired to relax. She hadn't eaten a thing since lunch, but wasn't hungry. Inside, she wanted to punish herself for not having her escape plan mapped out. 'I just assumed that elemental, or another one, would keep everyone busy long enough for me to get away. I mean, I fly, and I thought they didn't. But Blue Steel has his flight pack, and right now he's as fast as I am. Not as maneuverable, I could have used that, but he's as fast, so I wasn't getting away that way.' Her blue eyes hardened as she reevaluated her mistakes. 'Then again, I kept fighting long after I should have cut and run. How can I expect to save my grandfather, hell, save anyone, if I keep fighting when the battles lost? No, I made a lot of amateurish mistakes, cause in the end, I was and am an armature. Maybe, if I can get past the rough start, they'll help me learn how to do the job, be a better combatant. Maybe they'll help me learn how to decide when to run, when to fight, and whats the best thing to do in any circumstance.' She sighed. 'Damn, I could benefit from these lessons.'

Jade changed into her pajamas, slipping into bed with a discontented grown. 'Gonna be hungry in the morning, but no dinner for you, Missy. You screwed up.' Jade lay down, trying to drift to sleep. But sleep wasn't coming to her troubled mind. Not wanting to have an argument with herself all night, Jade pulled upon her magics and cast a sleep spell upon herself. The energies warred with her existing wards, and for a long moment, she was half asleep, thinking but not really that clear headed. Then, she remembered she was supposed to cast some divination's, asking the spirits what do do about her current, no win situation.

"You do realize, it's only no win if we let it stay that way?" Sikowitz asked. The teacher was dressed in what appeared to be a coat and tails, dressed up for an evening out on the town. Only, there was something cheap about his suit, like if you got close enough, you could see it was just sewn together to look nice, but wasn't some major brand or exquisitely tailored jacket. "Now, I had planned on teaching you a perception filter, so you wouldn't need to wear a mask, but I suspect we'll have time for that later, once we deal with whatever it was that made you magically dose yourself. You do realize that this, using magic to help you get to sleep, that can be addictive." His eyes bore into her. "No, you didn't, cause this is the first time you've done it. But if we don't do something, it won't be the last. So I recommend we work towards achieving the impossible, having you succeed in the program, graduating from the early parts of Project Redemption, so you can do your community service and earn yourself your freedom."

The teacher smiled, showing off the armature magician image he used to project when he was Mister Cadabra's sidekick. "Way I see it, you're not alone in hostile territory. Not any more. No, I'm there to help you out. I think, with me on your side, you can do the program, not earn too many demerits, and soon you'll be inspiring dozens of children all over the city. So, relax, and trust in Sikowitz. Sorry, Mister Abra. Gotta get used to my code name again. Anyways, why Black Dahlia?"

"She was the mystery." Jade said. "Even the name, a nickname she'd picked up during her life, no one could explain where it'd come from, just some people called her that. Then she dies, tortured, killed and cut in half, left naked in a suburban neighborhood, to be found by the first people out the next morning, and no one has a clue who did it or why. Even the movie, which was freaky enough, spoke of mystery and conspiracy. Mostly, however, I just liked the name. I loved the idea of dressing up in a nice black dress and veil, giving the image of old time elegance as I fell into combat."

"Okay, makes perfect sense to me." Sikowitz said with a shrug. "Now then, I'm gonna take you deeper into your subconscious, so you probably won't remember most of tonight's lessons. But it'll make it easier to work out the spells I want you to learn, and make them work with your particular mystic rhythm's and energies. Fit them into your aura. Long term magics work best if they fit naturally into our aura's, and the spells effects basically no longer take up any conscious space to maintain. Once we've taught you that, you should be able to be out on patrol as soon as next week. Doubt it'll be that quick, but soon enough, you'll be out wowing them with your abilities."

Jade replied "Sure", happy to at last have a teacher, but her memory of what came next was kinda flaky, mixing dreams and fantasy into a colorful whole that felt like a unicorn puked up a rainbow. The pale goth wasn't having fun with the new feelings, even as she became aware she was learning, and gaining a deeper understanding of the magics she used.

The next morning, Tori woke up feeling good. 'I wonder, will today be the day I reveal my powers to my dad? Nah, best to make sure I understand them before I show him what I can do. Besides, he'll just be disappointed I didn't have combat heavy abilities like Trina. But hay, sometimes, we have the powers we have. But...' Her eyes scanned the room. 'Time to get up, head in early for my training. So how do I get Trina to take me in early today… Oh yea, she's still heading in early herself. I'll just snag a ride.'

The singer finished getting ready as quickly as she could, heading down to have a nice breakfast. Cold cereal didn't seem that apostatizing, but that morning, her bowl was more then delicious. Tori had trouble keeping from dancing in place as she waited for Trina to be ready. "So, sis, you heading in early today?"

"Yea, Lane said he had some training he could help me with, and we both know that he's unreachable after school." The older girl said. "You okay hanging? I could see if maybe Dante was willing to give you a ride."

"Nah, it's good." Tori said. "Sides, Dante creeps me out. Always staring at my chest, comparing us. Who does that?"

"Boys." Trina replied, smiling a huge smile. "So, gonna tell us what your powers are?"

"Not until I have more control over them." Tori said. "But it does explain a lot about my life. Just, lets get done, so I can head in and see if the guy Lane set me up with can help."

"You know, in my day, we refereed to our teachers by their sir names." Holly said as she descended the stairs, ready for her day. "However, if this works, I'm expecting Mister Alexander to give me a full report. I mean, we've been watching for years, and never saw your abilities."

"So, where's dad?" Tori asked.

"He had to go in early to attend a briefing on The Black Dahlia." Trina said. "Kinda sucks, but hay, he volunteered to be her super. Personally, I feel Constable owes him. Man should have stepped up."

"Constable doesn't fly." Holly said. "Dahlia does. And given it took your father over two months to be considered safe in his flight gear, maybe it's better we let him handle this one."

"You don't sound convinced." Trina noted.

"Dahlia fried the monitoring sensors in the testing range." Holly said. "Girl can breath fire that melted metal, with the blow back frying half the range. Girls powerful. In fact, in all the simulations I've run, I keep coming up with one truth. She should have killed at least one of the two Meta's who were trying to stop her, seventy nine percent likely to have been Constable, then gotten away."

"Gee, thanks for giving us so much confidence in this sidekick thing working out." Tori groaned.

"No, that's just it." Holly sounded almost gleeful. "She didn't want to kill. I'm thinking, if Masters can avoid screwing this one up, she's probably easier to control then we're seeing. It's not about breaking her as much as figuring her out. Maybe if we went over her motivations, but David said that they're keeping her identity secret..."

"It's Jade." Trina tossed out. "Jade's the Black Dahlia. She was trying to rescue her grandfather, and her street skills leave a lot to be desired, so they lured her into a trap and caught her. And she's only taking the deal to give her grandfather a better deal. So, she's motivated…." The older daughter held her family with that lingering silence. "Look, we should be getting to school."

"Wait, Jade's probation, it's because she's the Black Dahlia?" Tori asked, struggling to make sense of that part of the conversation.

"According to Dante, she used the Infinity Codex, which is really dangerous, but it opened her potential to extreme levels." Trina explained. "Then again, she didn't have a mentor to tell her the risks, and maybe, just maybe, she was cautious because of that, and managed to avoid the inherent dangers. Whatever, I really didn't understand much about that, except she did it, and now she's powerful enough to be an Omega class threat to anything or anyone she may fight. Dante said they're gonna bind her powers, just to make her manageable."

"Sounds like a plan." Tori nodded at the thought.

"Only they can't." Holly filled in. "The police coven is full of wankers, minimally trained and barely skimming the supernatural. Had to be that way, cause otherwise you have all kinds of critters that would start messing with the coven, and the police would have limited use out of them. Far better to have a remote viewer for when you need it, and not have to rely upon the capes, who probably have other, bigger things to worry about."

"So they can't bind her?" Trina pushed.

"Not even close." Holly said. "They can try, but it won't work. Worse, it will, and she won't even notice the difference. And if Dante was wise enough to have kept his mouth shut, then maybe he'd have understood, given her powers, even a temporary binding backed by the full coven, plus all the help we could get, but even though there's a definite, slight chance that might work, but if it did, it wouldn't last that long. Hours, maybe, before her power just blows through whatever blocks we place upon her. But hay, what do I know. I've only studied this for most of my life."

"So, now that we know Jade's the Black Dahlia, what do we do about her exile?" Tori asked, breaking away from her mothers frustrated explanation, and the questions it held..

"Nothing." Trina replied. "It's a condition of her parole. Also, she's dangerous. Better to let her be alone, and wait until we see what kind of person she turns out to be."

"Wait, no one has ever successfully graduated from Project Redemption." Tori added. "Why's that?"

"Cause their criminals." Trina said.

"And no one was willing to trust them if they hadn't been totally subjugated." Holly added. "It was the same problem we had in the early days of the Better Cop Commission. Even an officer as weak as Constable is very powerful compared to us civilians. The commission wanted total control, and chose candidates who's loyalty was beyond reproach. For the third wave, after wasting a fair number in the first two, with only one real success, they loosened the requirements, just to have enough people. Your dad was the only success from that generation, more stable then before, and while studying him gave us an understanding on what to look for when choosing the next Constable, it was a while before we were able to figure out the right combination of genetic factors and abilities needed for that process to really succeed."

"So they need to break her?" Tori asked, focusing back on Jade.

"That's Mister Master's way." Holly said. "It's why he was chosen for that job. I just… No, not gonna discus me and your fathers differences about how best to reform people. Not my area of expertise."

"Maybe we should just go…?" Trina pointed.

"Yea..." Tori agreed. "Bye mom, see you later."

The girls raced out to the car, hoping to avoid the awkward discussion that might happen as their mother tried to explain the differing opinions that their parents shared over how best to do anything. The girls had seen them fight, but also seen the cold way Holly often treated their dad, like he was more an experiment then her husband. But the woman did manage not to make the girls feel like they were experiments, so they often tried to ignore the odd feelings that sometimes happened in their home, and focused instead on the happy memories.

"So, sorry about telling, but I felt you should know." Trina said as the sped off towards the school

"But what do I tell the others?" The singer asked. "I mean, don't they have the right to know?"

"No, they don't." Trina snapped. "Think. Not only does she have some small right to privacy, if word of who she is gets out, then it won't take too long to connect her with dad. Even if they don't, assuming she does become dad's sidekick, them knowing about her puts all her friends at risk. Even sweet little Cat. So, we need to keep this under wraps. I only told you because you're gonna be one of us, one of the powered people who have the difficult job of deciding what to do with that power you have. So, what kind of powers do you have?" It was an almost clever shift, pushing to make the singer finally give in and tell her family what she could do.

"Weird ones." Tori said. "Just get us to school, so we can both get through our training. I feel a need to be ready, cause I don't think Jade will allow herself to be broken. Hell, I doubt she'll be broken, but she might snap, and that will only make things worse…."

"Assuming mom's right." Trina argued. "Dad's sure he's right, and this will all work out, even under Mister Masters. So we let them have their own opinions, and we treat Jade as a person, except one who could raze the whole school if she chose too. So, cautious optimism?"

Tori laughed, enjoying Trina's attempt at humor. "Why is it you never tried comedy?" She asked.

"Cause I wanna be respected for my acting, not my wit." Trina said. "Just, when your ready, let me know what you can do, okay?"

"Foot archery." Tori replied.

"Other then your freaky foot agility." Trina pushed.

"Where does the hundred pounds of mass come from?" Tori asked. "You know, when you shift into warpath? Where does that mass come from? I mean, you grow. I understand that. You grow what, maybe eight inches? Eight inches, and denser, and a hundred extra pounds that we can see, cause hello muscles.'

"Yea, I get stronger, tougher, faster, everythinger then dad." Trina acknowledged. "I'm already as strong and quick as Martha was, back when she was The constable. Warpath was and is a bit more. But I won't have most of the extra equipment dad carries, not when I'm in that form. I could have some body armor, I guess. Just, how the hell do I look sexy in that kind of chiz?" They'd reached the school, and Trina was busy parking the car.

Tori shook her head. "Go, study with Lane. Maybe I'll drop by the training room later, see what you're up to."

"I'll tell Reggie." Trina said, and headed off. "Yea, he's gonna be with us, cause.. You know." she hesitated only a moment. "Used to think Lane had a thing for Reg. Who knew Lane wasn't gay? Other then Reg, cause his Gaydar, spot on…"

Tori didn't respond, already off towards her own meeting. The singer then hummed to herself as she made her way to the room she'd come to understand was where her new trainer might be found most early mornings, after the school opens for the day. 'That is, assuming he shows up...'

:}

I swear, I'm gonna tell you what Tori can do. Really, one of these chapters, I'm gonna tell you. Just, for now, believe in her powers.

Trina gets bigger when she shifts. No one ever explains where the extra mass comes from. It just does. So much for physics.

So, thoughts? Review, and we'll see what you think Tori can do. I will say, it's possible she's as strong, in her own way, and Jade. Or as cute. I always get those two mixed up… Just, review...