Without the formality of even a BreadStiX's dinner, the new school year stole the innocence of the summer and left it where all the prized but lost items of our youth end up…memory.

McKinley High bustled with the active chaos inherent to any group that has yet to experience the weight of a normal Monday. Cliques, herds born in time immemorial, had already reformed with little changed in their pecking order or composition; the leaders still led, the followers still followed.

Like every High School, McKinley was in all intents-and-purposes a very predictable place. Every four years saw a turnover in the student body but not the student mind. The brick-and-mortar Beast lived on, rehashing the same stories of love and hate, power and weakness, similarity and difference…good and evil. If one waited long enough, they could watch the same tales told in the same ways with only the players' faces changed in the telling.

And so this year began like all those before it, promising nothing new for any that watched the metaphorical stage that was McKinley High. Seemingly charted for another course through the tired and told tales of adolescence, none noticed the lone young woman expertly weaving her way through the hallways, removed from the sights and minds of the student body. Alone, by design, in the Body Academic, she carried with her a tale very rare to the halls she slipped through…a story not seen in decades.

But like all tales unique enough to get their own telling, it is only proper to start at the beginning.

'Two more years. Half over. I can do this,' thought Nellie, as she unconsciously slipped into an empty chemistry lab to avoid a group of Cheerios that swept through the spot she had occupied a second earlier. The garbled noise of simultaneous conversation surrounded the red-and-white clad cheerleaders, and not one of them even noticed the girl they had almost run over.

Which was exactly the way Nellie liked it.

As a child her grandfather, an ancient, silver-haired man, had taken her to his garden. Many parents used kitchens, bedrooms, or offices for important talks, but men of her grandfather's generation found a well-tended garden to be the best forum for the delineation of life's lessons learned. She could still remember the rough and prickly scratch of his calloused hands over hers and the difficulty she had matching the long stride of his thin legs, as they traveled down the grassy hill and past the great walnut tree to his sancta sanctorum.

Most of his lessons, Nellie carried with her and used more often than any teenager would ever admit, but it was one teaching in particular that had become her one and only commandment during her time at McKinley.

'Don't draw fire, Little Girl', he had warned, 'Don't draw your enemies eyes to you.'

Over the last two years, she had perfected the art of invisibility, rendering herself below the attention of the entire school. In so doing, she had escaped all of the maliciousness and degradation gifted to so many of her peers. No bullying, no rumors, and thank god no slushies…she was unscarred, but her invisibility had come at a price. No one at McKinley called her 'friend' and very few even knew her name. Nellie kept telling herself it was worth it, that the cons vastly outweighed the pros. For every friendship she might be able to cultivate, the rest of the school, the bullies, the Croparazzi, and the wicked would begin to see her, and before she would have a chance to escape, her image would end up on a Facebook page…defamed, disgraced.

This new 'social' world was not kind to the teenager, and Nellie knew this better than most. Enemy soldiers were everywhere, waiting to fire smartphones instead of lead with the former just as lethal as the latter. One wrong move captured on the internet; a sneeze, an errant comment, a simple mistake, and one could find themselves ridiculed for the rest of their High School existence. Nellie couldn't stomach the thought of a life lived that way, so two years ago she had turned invisible and in-so-doing had never drawn fire.

Approaching her locker, she quickly scanned for any potential encounters before spinning the combination lock, opening the metal portal, and hiding in the limited cover it provided. With practiced hands, she scooped up the things she needed and moved to deposit the notebooks from her last class, but before she could finish, the impossible happened, someone spoke…to her.

'How was your Summer?"

At first she thought she would just continue with her routine and pretend the comment had been directed at someone else, but Nellie knew otherwise. The question had come from the locker beside her, the one hidden by the worn metal of her own door, the locker that had been Rachel Berry's before she had graduated last Spring. On occasion, Rachel had said 'hi' to her, but this voice wasn't hers; in fact it wasn't a 'her' voice at all.

'Hey,' a knock sounded from the other side of her locker door, 'didn't mean to intrude. Just looking to shake a few of these nerves before I have to actually, you know, learn. Wow, that makes me sound like a meathead. I like school, not like Mathlete level 'like'…not that there's anything wrong with being a Mathlete. Please tell me you're not a Mathlete.'

There was a pause and an anxious, shuffling sound, like one simultaneously fumbling words and a football.

'I should probably go. Sorry to spill my crazy all over you.'

Before she could stop herself, Nellie's voice made its first appearance in the halls of McKinley,

'It was…fine. My Summer was fine, and 'no' I'm not a Mathlete.'

Her books and notebooks swapped, she had but one thing left to do, close her locker door. With a steadying breath, Nellie slowly shut it and faced the first student to ever engage her in a conversation that spanned multiple syllables. She should've noticed his handsome features, shaggy yet perfectly styled hair, or athletic build first, but they all faded as she fell into his warm smile. Lightning lasted longer than the moment they shared; but sometimes, every-so-often, a heartbeat was all that was needed to change one's life. Quickly she looked over his shoulder, then down to the ground; anywhere but his face.

'Blake Ryan,' his large hand appeared in her field of vision, 'First day here, so please don't write me off as 'imbalanced' or something.'

Before she was forced to decide between the dangers of shaking his hand and NOT shaking his hand, a nightmarish sound oozed from farther up the hallway.

'Alright, instant poll!' an obnoxious voice declared, 'Who's hot and who's not!'

Nellie froze. Oh, Jesus…the Croparazzi.

The standard-bearers for the social bullying trend in American High Schools, the Croparazzi held the whole of McKinley in a state of constant anxiety. The evolution of the 'rag-mag' tabloids of the last century and the yellow journalism of a hundred years prior, they manufactured stories and manipulated pics to tell the tales they wanted. Friends of the vile group enjoyed a falsely inflated social status made possible by the Croparazzi's expert manipulation of all things Internet, provided, of course, these 'friends' blew the appropriate amount of smoke up the appropriate places.

And for those that did not know the favor of the powerful clique? Well they found themselves the victims of 'Crop-lifting', where their image would be added to anything and everything a detestable mind could imagine. Experts as they were, the 'truth' hardly mattered when these pics went online. Propaganda, executed by the powerful, made its own truth.

Their defacto leader was a junior named Charlie Booth, a John Cusack look-a-like that held a repulsive soul beneath his handsome features. He had been personally responsible for the Croparazzi's rise to power, and now looked to start the new year off right, by reminding McKinley that the sheriff was back in town.

Before a freshman knew it, Charlie had shoved his iPhone in her face and snapped a quick pic. So shocked by the attention of an older boy, the girl actually smiled and blushed, but before she could enjoy the moment, Charlie quickly posted the photo online and said to the rest of the Croparazzi.

'This fatty won't even make it out of the pre-lims. Jesus, I can barely fit her cheeks in frame!'

Nellie watched in sadness, as the freshman girl's face fell and tears welled up in her blue eyes. Her friends, sensing that the 'weak gazelle' might drag them down too, moved away from the devastated girl, leaving her alone in the wash of humanity that was McKinley.

Like snipers in a target-rich environment, Charlie and the Croparazzi swept down the hall snapping pics of every female they encountered. Some, like the poor freshman, were left with a vicious verbal wound to tend, but all the girls were left with the impression that they had just been violated.

Realizing she had lingered too long, Nellie panicked, ignored Blake's still extended hand, and looked for an escape route…but none existed. Quickly reaching over her shoulder, she grabbed her hood, pulled it over her head, and hoped her last line of defense would hold. But even though she was now partially hidden, the quick motion had earned her some unwanted attention, when Charlie, ever the predator, noticed the movement and moved closer.

At five paces, Booth raised his smartphone and readied for the killing shot.

At three paces, Charlie fired…only to capture the sky-blue of Blake's t-shirt.

At the last moment, Blake Ryan's large form had moved in between Nellie and Charlie, and just like that, she was hidden again, safe. Slipping from behind Blake, she melted back into the faceless mass of McKinley and returned to her invisibility, but as she moved into the crowd, she heard her grandfather's warning

'Don't draw fire.'

Risking a glance back, her stomach tightened, when she saw the look on Charlie's face as he stared at Blake, as he stared at the boy that had robbed him of his fun.

'Don't draw your enemy's eyes to you…'

She froze, and the thought of escape began to be replaced with concern for someone she hadn't really even met. But in the end, Nellie's 'training' and instincts carried her away from the scene, and within just a few seconds, she was gone.

'I don't know you,' with a smile that seemed sincere, Charlie stuck his hand out, 'Lets change that. Charlie Booth, welcome to McKinley.'

Blake's hesitation lasted only a second, but Charlie caught it; just as Blake had caught Charlie's treatment of the freshman girl. Taking the offered hand, Blake tried and failed to hide his contempt,

'Blake Ryan. It's my first day.'

'Your first day, my how exciting!' Charlie deftly released Blake's hand, wrapped his arm around his shoulders, and brought his iPhone up, taking a picture of them both, 'There! Our first meeting captured for all time. Will McKinley ever be the same?'

With a wink, Charlie released Blake and stepped back toward his group. The rest of the Croparazzi had moved closer to their leader and now formed a semi-circle around him, providing Booth with the 'intimidation factor' deserving a villain of his stature.

'Mr. Ryan, I'll let the rumor mill fill you in on me and mine,' he spread his arms, presenting the rest of the Croparazzi like a proud parent, 'And when they do, know that I'm giving you a 'pass' since it's your first da…'

But before Charlie could finish his threat, someone from behind the Croparazzi interrupted him.

'Oh my God, I forgot how annoying your voice is, Chuck. Between your pontificating here and Romney's insanity on TV, I'm going to have to start wearing ear muffs and humming just to make it through the day.'

The fake smile bled from Charlie's face. The crowd, sensing the tension on an almost animalistic level, parted to give Charlie Booth and the newcomer space, as a pride would part for two alpha-males. Turning slowly, the 'social bully' lowered his gaze, so he could stare his adversary in the eye.

From his wheelchair, Artie Abrams smirked up at Charlie and matched his sinister gaze with one of utter indifference, daring the bully to practice his trade on him.

Up to the task, Booth tilted his head and spoke with a voice drenched in condescension.

'Why if it isn't old 'Double A', or is it 'Triple A'? Damn if I can keep it straight,' with a nearly palpable arrogance, Charlie fired a wink at Artie before he finished, 'The wheels always throw me off.'

Artie smiled,

'Guess my wheels and your ex-girlfriends have a lot in common.'

Giggles floated out of the growing crowd.

Charlie snapped a pic of Artie and looked down at his iPhone,

'I think I'll tag this one 'handy-capable asshat'.'

Bringing his fingers together in the classic 'movie director' frame, Artie pretended to take a picture of his own and winked at Charlie between the rectangles of his fingerless gloves,

'And I think I'll call this one 'Bag of douche'.

More giggles floated past the dueling pair.

Laughing himself, Charlie dismissed Artie and motioned for the Croparazzi to follow him, but spared one last glance at Blake before leaving,

'Lets get out of here,' Booth said to his stable of wolves, 'I think we'll take the stairs.'