ProfNigma Stories #5: If Wishes Were Hornets #14

ProfNigma Stories #5: If Wishes Were Hornets #14iCarly/Victorious: If Wishes Were Hornets #14 ? Tori"I wish I was the star of my very own TV show."When Tori Vega woke up, she felt extremely worn down. Dancing with Jade for half the night at the party had certainly taken a toll on her body. She even got a few dances in with Nate, but by the time they had the chance, the party had already died down and she was ashamed to say that she was a little dr*nk. Tori wished she felt bad about not giving Nate as much attention as she should, but honestly, she didn't and she just couldn't bear to tell him how she really felt. She made her way out of bed and into her shower, groaning and trying to fight the hangover that was splitting her skull.As she got out and dried off, she could hear Trina moving around downstairs but what really threw her was that her parents seemed to also be there. Something felt nice about knowing that her f*mily was around today. Lately, it felt like they were never around anymore, so just having loved ones around seemed to ease Tori's pounding head."Hey, sweetie," her mom casually said."Hey, mom. Glad to see you and dad are actually-""Ughh? can we finally eat breakfast," Trina whined from the table. "You can talk later. I'm really tired and hungov-"Trina was silenced by a look from her dad as he shot a look that might as well have been a gunshot."-Hung over my clothes on a clothes hanger?" the eldest Vega said, trying to save face. "Which is a completely normal thing to do."Mr. Vega just shook his head and checked his watch. "Tori, hun, would you run out and grab the paper for me? I'm making breakfast and your mom is helping me. And your s*ster? anyway? can you go out and get it?"Tori sighed and shrugged, heading out into the morning's light, the sun's brightness making her eyes feel like they might explode. She walked slowly up the drive to grab the paper from the box, but as she reached inside, she found something that felt like a magazine. As she pulled it out, it was blue and seemed to be filled with pages. It was a script.VicToriOus:"Falling Star"Directed by: Joe CataniaWritten by: Dan SchneiderAs Tori flipped through the first couple of pages the script had every word that she had just had with her f*mily. Right down to her dad sending her out to get the paper. Shaking her head like this was a dream she quickly made her way back inside and saw her f*mily sitting around the table and staring at her as if to wait for something. Tori quickly took her seat at the kitchen table, holding tight to the script."So, I hear there's someone whose been breaking into the school," her dad said, looking at her strangely.Tori stared at him confused and quickly looked under the table at the script. Sure enough, the line was there. She mumbled as she read it out, "So, I hear there's someone who?s been breaking-""I JUST FUCKING SAID THAT!" he shouted in a voice that was completely unlike his own."Cut!"Hearing another voice echo through her house scared her and she jumped and looked into her living room where the voice came from. The wall, she just thought, her mind feeling like it had snapped. The wall was gone, and now there was just a crowd of people standing in her living room with cameras and other technical pieces.Her f*mily each got up and headed into the crowd, apparently for makeup touch-up and the like. A middle aged man came from the crowd and looked a bit upset, and Tori was secretly worried that whoever this was mad at her for something. Luckily he was wearing a hat that said Joe, so she prayed that was his name."Victoria? what's up?" Joe said, eyeing her."Umm? you can just call me Tori?""Want to stay in character? Ok then? that's fine. So? what's wrong?""I? umm? I don't really know. I guess I'm just really confused. What's going on here?"Joe laughed, "I don't think any of us ever really do. Why don't you get your makeup on and we'll do another take once you're ready. I know you're worried about today."Tori was about to say something when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She spun around to see a heavyset man with black hair that seemed overly friendly, but there was something off about him."VJ?" he said, spinning her around a full circle. "You're killing me.""Umm? I'm sorry. What did you call me?""VJ? you know? Your nickname? based off your initials? Victoria Justice? anyway?" he paused, seeing that his star was beginning to hyperventilate. "Look, I know you're tired and I get that you really don't want to shoot today, but we don't have the money to spend another day on the series? so, try and keep things on schedule, if you don't mind k*ddo.""What is going on?!" she shouted, earning the attention of everyone on set. "Where is my living room?"The crew watched as Victoria Justice began to just lose her mind, racing up the house's stairs that actually didn't lead anywhere."Where's my room? What. The. Hell. Is. Going. On?""Ummm? Victoria?" the heavyset man asked, "I'm gonna go ahead and call for lunch? take some time to get? whatever this is straight, ok?"The large man sauntered back into the crowd and Tori was left standing in her fake living room. It took her a few seconds to recognize her f*mily on the side of the set. She rushed over to them as they were removing their microphones, and changing clothes."Mom! Dad! Trina! What's going on?""What's going on is you're fucking up your lines, Victoria," her mother responded snidely."What?!" Tori said, completely taken aback."She's right, Victoria," Trina said, taking a seat that said 'Daniella' on it. "It's time you really faced the inevitable. It's not that we don't like you. We're just ready to move on to more important roles. Just learn your lines and ride this thing out.""Yes," Mr. Vega chimed in, with a British accent for some reason, "It's not as if we are performing Chekov, dear girl. I never imagined that I would be giving up a real Broadway career for some ch*ldren's show.""What's wrong with you guys? Why are you acting like this? I'm your daughter!""Oh, now she takes her role seriously," her mom said, rolling her eyes as she left the stage area.Trina and her 'dad' headed off together as well, and Tori was mortified when she saw her dad reach down and grab Trina's ass before her s*ster slapped his hand away. Tori could hear the two of them arguing back and forth as they exited the stage area. Tori stood around, feeling like she was about to cry when she heard a familiar voice behind her."Hey VJ," Cat said, causing Tori to spin around. "You look lost. Did you lose something?" There was something about her voice that just seemed off."Yeah, Cat, I-""We're not filming, you can call me Ari, you know?""Oh sorry? Ari? I guess I just feel like I've just lost my life," the Latina said looking all over the set which looked faker and faker with each glance.The redhead giggled a bit, "That's after lunch?" The normally shy girl Ankara escort laughed a bit more and then headed out to where everyone was standing.Tori rushed out and saw Trina drinking a smoothie, wearing giant aviator sunglasses."Trina," she called out. "I've gotta get to my room. I gotta something out of it."Her s*ster looked confused and pointed across the way from where they were when her room was made of a whole different set. "Your room set's over there, VJ. And you can call me Daniella? what's up with you today?""I'm not really sure, Tr- I mean, Daniella. I am so confused.""It's because you're stressed. You need to do some yoga and you need to cut down on the meat that you eat. Eating meat ruins our ability to think clearly and you need to put your all into today's filming, especially if Ari is... well, you know."Tori was going to ask what she was talking about, but Daniella had to rush away, leaving Tori standing with her back to the darkened set of her house. The teen looked out into what appeared to be a huge backlot, seeing several of her friends and co-stars walking around, but it was mostly crew and tech people carrying or setting up stuff.The Latina casually walked up and down the streets, and saw that a lot of people were dodging eye contact with her. Tori looked around searching for something that seemed remotely familiar when she heard some very familiar singing. Her eyes darted across the way and saw the school and she raced over, hoping what she heard was who she thought it was.Sure enough, she rounded the corner inside the hallways set and saw Sikowitz in his classroom. Only as she saw that he seemed the exact same did the concept of the wish even remotely cross her mind."Tori Vega!" he shouts, sipping from his trademark coconut. "You were not someone I was expecting to see today. What brings you by?""Welll, Sikowitz, it?s? Wait, did you call me Tori?""Yes? that's the name you're identified as, right?""Umm? yeah, I guess. So, here's the thing-""Would you like a coconut?" he offers her one just like his.While Tori could use a drink, this was certainly not what she was wanting. "I'm ok. So, anyway, I woke up and everything was normal, but now? I'm like in this TV show and there are cameras everywhere and everyone's being super cryptic about, like, everything.""So what exactly are you saying?" he said, with a serious face, taking a sip."I don't know, Sikowitz? that's kinda why I'm here.""Well, then?" he said, moving over to his desk, "why don't we just look at these pages?" he says, flipping through a script that was identical to the one she had this morning. "I find that whenever there's a plot that needs some moving, I just sorta come in and say something relevant and then go away. If you just follow the pages, you should be just fine.""The pages?" she said, quizzically. "It was that script! Everything went all nutso when I looked at that script. Maybe that's what caused all this. Maybe that's the key to getting things back to normal.""Maybe," he said flipping through. "Here we are? Tori, that's you, heads to school to talk to Mr. Sikowitz, which is me. And here's all our lines: I offered you a coconut, check, you talk about your crisis, check, and now here I am looking up what happens next."Tori stared at him for a few moments, eventually snapping out of whatever stupor he was in when she yelled, "What happens next?""This is odd, Tori? the rest of these pages are blank. See?" he asked, offering her to take a look. "I? don't know what I'm supposed to do. The last thing it says is for me to show you the pages. Maybe you should stick around they might send some more pages. Maybe change things. The higher ups do that all the time."The two sat in silence for a couple minutes when an idea struck Tori so hard, she nearly fell over. "If there's a script, Sikowitz, there has to be a writer!""You know? there is some real brilliance to that logic, Vega. If we didn't have an exact script to follow for everything than the world would descend into true chaos. You can't just have people moving and shaking all willy nilly. Looks like this Dan guy is the writer? maybe you should go see him? and maybe he'll have some more of these wonderful pages."Wasting no time, Tori bolted from the classroom, running down the fake halls of the school, and trying desperately to find a map to go and talk to this Dan guy.****It took almost 20 minutes to track down, but Tori finally found out where Dan's office was and stormed the place, rushing by the secretary who warned her twice that she was not allowed in the writer and producer offices without proper consent. Tori didn't care. She just wanted this nightmare to end.Quickly finding Dan's door, she burst inside and found the heavyset man from earlier inside talking to Cat."Umm? VJ, you know that actors aren't supposed to be in my office, right?""But? Mr. Schneider," she said as if she was just guessing his name, "I'm not a real actress.""It takes a really confident person to admit to that?" Cat muttered, earning a laugh between her and Dan."Sir, I'm not entirely sure what is going here, but I-"Tori was cut off as Dan rushed her over to the couch where Cat was seated. "I'm actually glad you're here though, Victoria. Ari and I have been discussing some things in your final scene and I think we might be making some changes to the script. Just tweaks.""Thank god? I've been-""So, here's the setup we have right now. It's night-time. You left the house to head to the school. You're in the auditorium getting some materials for Jade, and I already talked to Liz about this, and you two are going to try and put on a small play together. Anyway, that's not important. What is important, though, is that Avan, or 'Beck,' since you seem so set on using character names today, Matt/Robbie, and Ari here are also in the school.""See," Cat spoke up, "we have been talking about this prowler thing, and earlier this guy, who has been stealing art supplies, attacked Leon, or Andre, and hurt him pretty bad. So, we're out to try and stop this guy.""Right, but you don't know anything about them showing up. You finish getting what you need and you cut the lights out just as they get into the auditorium. Our girl, Cat, here, comes in and being the oblivious cutie she is, thinks you're the bad guy and she shoots you.""Actually," Cat said, putting her hand on the horrified Tori's shoulder, "I'm thinking I might need to shoot her a few more times? say seven or eight? you know, so it's clear to the viewers that she is good and dead. And then we can easily go to 'Sam