This is a sequel to Change in Direction. I do recommend that you read that first but that's just me. Basically this is set in a AU of Season 1 where events lead ND to become a family of Killers for Hire.
It was a confident woman that walked into FBI headquarters and said she had information on the Life's Direction family. It was the thing to say to get notice. Life's Direction was one of the most notorious group of killers in the country. They had been active for well over fifty years; a total of 3500 deaths had been proven to be theirs with another 2000 suspected. They were killers for hire of the highest caliber who picked their jobs well and knew when to slip underground. In the thirty years the group had been tracked no one had been able to positively ID even one of the members; most weren't even truly sure how many there were.
The woman's pronouncement was met with shock as she was ushered into a meeting room. That shock turned to frustration when she said she would only give the information to Sue Sylvester, a cheerleading coach from a town where the group once killed 50 people.
It took a few hours to track down the old cheerleading coach, now going on 70. It only took a single explanation for the women agree to be rushed to the capitol.
She stormed into the meeting room still in her ever present track suit. The younger woman smiled, "you are just like they described you" She greeted.
"Who told you about me? Why did you ask for me?"
"My family asked that you be the only one I give this information to" she said calmly pulling a dossier about an inch and a half thick. Handing to the old woman she slipped past the stunned agents and was out of the building before anyone could stop her.
Sue opened the book to the first page.
Hello Sue,
We knew that our little group wouldn't stay around after our deaths. I wanted the world to know what they did. I will likely not survive to finish this but once it's done there is no one I would want to see our secrets but you.
Yours in death, Will Schuester
The next group of pages were short biographies of each family member accompanied by a single photo per page of the person in their prime.
Will: I was born to teach; I loved kids and wanted some of my own. Terry thought she could trick me and pretend she was pregnant. I was surrounded by children who were hurting with nothing I could do. Then I was able to take over Glee. I know you never understood my drive Sue but I could help my students feel safe. That's all I ever wanted…for my kids to feel safe. Whatever it took I would do it; even encouraging murder, isolation, separatist thinking. We may have fell into the business of murder by accident my kids would become the best wherever their talents led.
Quinn: Before us Quinn had never had a real family as clichéd as it was. Her father certainly didn't get to his position by being a decent human being. He got to where he was by taking exactly what he wanted and demanding perfection from those around him. Quinn ignored the bruises like her mother taught her and strove for any position that would give her the power. She locked all her talents, her dreams, and her hopes into a little box. As she began to look more like her mother when she was young more unfortunate clichés occurred; ending in a night of horror and a ripped uniform.
After her newly made family helped to protect her she flourished in silence. It turned out Quinn loved to cook; bakery too, anything that involved mixing ingredients. She was a natural as well, very good from her first pancake on. As a natural progression of that she was drawn to the sciences whose facts appealed to her straight foreword personality and unbending work ethic. As a whiz in the kitchen she of course became our poison/demolition expert.
Finn: Poor Finn, caught in a spiral of popularity. He is genuinely nice person who sort of fell into the right crowd then realized he was unable to escape; a great follower who could motivate everyone else. We earned his deepest loyalty by not demanding anything of him but that he is happy with himself and who he was. We were even on hand to help him change as needed.
Out of all of us he was the caretaker making sure we were had a roof over our heads, patching us up when things went wrong. For all that he wasn't very book smart he was a natural Healer. He spent a great deal of time learning anatomy; it turned out that when he was interested he could learn things a great deal easier. There were a few that we brought back to gather information, those we would hand over to his tender mercies. Like I said Finn was a gentle loyal soul; but even the gentlest of giants could be vicious when necessary.
Rachel: It's strange to think that of all of us Rachel was the only true sociopath. She, like all my children, was an outcast certainly. She never quite understood why though. To her there was no greater cause then her own happiness and at first we were all tools to further that happiness. It was midway through her junior year that we became extensions of her; therefore our happiness began to matter as well.
Rachel has always been a schemer. She was one of our two planners and as such could decide who would do what job within minutes. She was often the person in charge of distributing Quinn's poisons. She was the reason we fell into this business, not only that but she is the reason we excelled. She was the one who brought us all together for our first job. Not for the Fabray's who most of us didn't know about until after or Nora Puckerman who was an accident. Not even Dave Karofski, who she did by herself. Later we will speak of the job that started it all.
Puck: There is no doubt Puck is our muscle. He could also be the most creatively cruel of all the children. His mother was an alcoholic obsessed with the Holocaust; she made sure both he and his sister knew every fact, every figure and every story she could show them. In school he was committed to keeping Finn and Quinn safe however he could. If that meant breaking rules, hurting others well so be it. Our Puck was pragmatic to the core.
He would find out the information about our targets by whatever means necessary. He knew he looked good and used that often. But also with his researching, he devoured history. After he knew what everyone was doing when he would bring the information to either Rachel or Kurt.
Kurt: Ah Kurt, he was responsible for the Fabrays you know. He was a schemer who used his innocent looks to his advantage. More than that he was a master forger; he would have to be if he wanted to hide the dry cleaning bill from his father. When they killed the Fabrays he was the one who emancipated Quinn through a well written will and a forged signature.
The abuse he suffered at that school…it boggles the mind that he didn't just kill himself sometimes. Each of my kids thought about it at different times. He reacts badly to bullying or abuse. Remember those absolutely vicious killing about eight years ago. Yeah we found out that the father was molesting the daughter. Blaine, Kurt and Quinn spent weeks thinking up just the right punishment.
Mercedes: Our Diva. In many ways she was our face. She would meet with the clients; negotiate. More than one of our clients under estimated her for being a woman. No one underestimated her twice. She was strong willed and knew how to use her words. She could be vicious though; taking after her best friend Kurt of course. Of all of us she was the most adaptable.
Her voice was her greatest weapon. The degree of control she developed was astounding. I once saw her talk a client from suspicious to feeling like her best friend in the space of minutes. I also watched her talk a sociopath into committing suicide out of guilt. When we took jobs she would ferret out all the information from the clients.
Santana: Ahhh…Beautiful Santana, a seductress and a grade A assassin. She took your training Sue and she soared with it. But there was more to this woman than the place to slide three inches of steel.
She curbed her temper and her impulses from youth. She found a place to shine with us in a way she never had before. She enacted Rachel or Kurt's plans with precision that escapes most people. She was deadly accurate with her blades. The man you found surgically castrated about ten years ago was one of hers; I believe his wife hired us since he was cheating on her.
Brittany: Brittany was a special person to all of us. Her death will be what destroys us. Rachel is our drive, Kurt is our spark but Brittany is our compassion. She is also much smarter than people give her credit for. Of the kids she has the most education. I was so proud the day she completed her Doctorate program. In another life she would have become a psychologist.
She could take apart a targets mind more efficiently than Santana could take apart their body. I've lost count of the times she has asked a seemingly innocent question of an informant and flustered them so badly they give us all the information we need. She and Puck have some kind of contest going in regards to that.
Mike& Tina: It's been so long since they were separate people in my mind. They spend every waking and sleeping moment together. They've trained daily to become one of our most destructive teams. They bounce skills off each other and can take out a room of trained guards with ten minutes.
She prefers a whip; of course she can fight well without it but she is known for the custom made whip with embedded within, it's almost legendary among the underworld now. So is the poison she lovingly coats each hook with. He uses no weapons but is just as deadly with his hands. That dancers grace translated into martial skill; I know he once went up against a target wielding a semi automatic rifle, the target ended up dead and Mike ended up with a few superficial injuries.
Matt: Matt still doesn't talk much, not even with us. But no one outside of our group has heard him speak in several decades. Most of our clients think he's mute. He serves as Mercedes bodyguard. Were our lives less complicated he could also be considered her boyfriend.
Again many of our clients underestimate us at first because we have a woman speak for us. More than a few have tried to deal with Matt only to be met with a blank stare. Twice early on people tried to assassinate Mercedes. You don't want to know that Matt did to the assassins, or what we did to the people who hired them. Trust me you don't.
Artie: This man's skills with a computer are unmatched. I know cliché isn't it give the man in a wheelchair a computer. But what you don't realize is just how…creative Artie could get with technology. If it relied on any kind of radio waves or wireless connection he could hack it, including a toy car. That was a memorable assignment.
He Brittany and Santana have some strange relationship going on. Artie is the father of both their children; Santana even insists they call him dad or daddy. But I don't think they're together. Of course none of my kids really have what you call conventional relationships. But I suppose we can get to that later.
You all discounted him because he couldn't walk. I know that when you're people came to interview my kids about the McKinley High Massacre you immediately discounted him and anyone he said he was with. Ask your people what questions they asked before they talked to Artie and what questions they asked after.
Blaine: He wasn't one of my kids in high school; he never even went to McKinley but he became one of mine just the same. He is…cuddly for lack of better term. Brittany tells me the clinical term is skin hunger. Santana says the real term is clingy. Luckily Kurt and Puck were physical people, they clung right back. Find the right care and the plant will thrive.
Blaine could be obsessive, single focused and loyal to the very end. At my suggestion he learned how to shoot. That focus comes in handy when looking down the scope of a long range rifle. While we rarely used guns in our work, much too obvious, there have been times when the client requests a certain message.
Wes& David: These two were also new additions to my kids and like Mike and Tina you could not find one without the other. There was a different feel to their co dependency though, more desperate in a way. In some ways they were much more solid, traditional, and understandable that most of the others. They are our torturers. They can break even the toughest of men with a delight that would scare me if they weren't mine.
Those two learned cruelty, not at a young age but as teenagers on the cusp of adulthood. Your people might recognize their photo…or maybe not, they were pretty sure that no one even knew they had gone missing for a month between their sophomore and junior years. They had been kidnapped tortured from the descriptions we they gave us. Finally the two had killed their captors and escaped seemingly unscarred. The trio killed before we found them, had discovered the rush of holding some else's life in your hands on their own. So don't start talking about corruption Sue. I believe you have an open murder investigation for Sebastian Smyth. Yeah that was them testing their technique.
Beth: Little Beth was one of the few of our own children to follow into the family trade. She is Quinn's daughter born during her sophomore year. Do you remember Sue? Quinn quit the Cheerio's not long after her parents died; she said that she couldn't hold herself to your exacting standard while she was grieving. She rejoined the next year as if nothing had happened. Beth was the true reason; we knew if anyone found out that Quinn was pregnant there would be questions. If they found out that her daughter was also her half sister uncomfortable light would be shed upon many of our plans.
She turned into such a darling little assassin. She grew up silent as the breeze with her own self made garrote. Strangling was her forte. The Senator who botched his hanging a few decades ago was her first training mission; beautifully done, though there was room for improvement.
Miriam: She was a stray that found Puck one day and latched on. She was about 5 at the time. He was surprisingly good father to her teaching her everything he knew. She decided that Kurt was her Mommy, to this day still calls him mom. She was our record keeper; apprenticed to Artie she helped keep our clients and targets straight.
Kevin: He was one of Brittany's children. There was none of her mother's off the wall intuition though. None of her compassion either. From the time he was knee high he loved to spend time with his uncles Wes and David. They drew him into their fold; thankfully he did not become as co dependant as they were.
Kevin loved to make nerves dance in pain. He studied the nervous system with a single minded intensity. With his mastery he could make the illusion of pain that felt like the skin burned or froze. With special cases he even did both.
There were other kids, Sue; adopted strays and biological children alike who went on to other things. Children who knew nothing of our real work…of the secrets that have defined us all. Even a few that went into law enforcement. They were all successful though, anything they truly put their minds to was done. You may be asking yourself Sue 'why now?' Well its simple all of the first generation are dead. One of my grandkids will deliver two more packages to you Sue…and they will be to you alone. One will talk about how we fell into our business and one will give details on how we died.
Remember us Sue. Because I think…
You will be the only one to remember the truth.