Well, this is the main show, everyone. As you can see, there's a rather important genre change here. Rest assured that I'm going to be working hard to make sure this is just as grounded in reality as I can manage. This is the same universe as Star Pupil, and I want to make sure it doesn't become a caricature of it.

The usual disclaimers apply. Don't own Glee, which shouldn't be a surprise. I can imagine the horrified reaction of Fox's execs if I brought Star Pupil to them and told them it was the new episode we were filming.

The Star Prince by Big Destiny

Part one

When he first saw them, Finn Hudson was convinced that he and Kurt had made a mistake walking home. Sure, he found out later it wouldn't have made a difference, but at that point Finn was wishing it had rained that day.

It had been a great day, though. The weather was perfect ('glorious' was the term Rachel had used) right from the moment the sun came up. And after checking on-line and determining that it was going to stay like this for several days, Kurt had insisted that they were going to walk to the mall to meet the other Gleeks. Which Finn could have never guessed would happen, because Kurt was so pale Finn was sure Kurt glared at the sun every time he saw it.

Finn should have guessed a neon blue parasol would be involved.

The rest of the day had followed the weather's glorious example. Quinn had finally gotten back into her pre-Prego jeans. A guy had flirted with Mercedes. And Kurt had found a hat that was apparently a good deal, despite the fact that even the sale price was more than the other boys usually paid for pants. At one point Kurt had even frowned and said things were going too well. Finn told him that he was worried for nothing.

Now, Finn was starting to wonder if Kurt was on to something.

"Kurt-Hummel." There were five of them; four ordinary looking guys and a tall older woman, who was the one who had spoken. She was smiling, but that cool polite smile that college scouts gave you when they were about to tell you that you weren't UCLA material. Finn couldn't remember seeing them before. But given how bitchy Kurt suddenly looked, it was clear his almost-stepbrother knew who this woman was.

Kurt didn't even stop walking, at least not until the woman was right in front of him, not moving. "I have nothing to say to you," Kurt told her, Finn's second big surprise of the day, because it seemed like Kurt had something to say to everyone. Even if it was something nasty. Especially if it was something nasty.

Nothing seemed to be the wrong thing to say though, because the four men with her moved to circle Kurt and Finn. Finn looked around, realizing that they'd found the perfect place to ambush them. Walking home from the mall meant crossing the McKinley football field. Now that school was out, they were alone and isolated enough that no one would hear them.

Three weeks earlier, their house had been broken into. Kurt had been alone and amazingly he'd been able to take down all four guys by himself. But it had shaken him badly, and Finn figured that Kurt had probably gone back to never fighting. He hoped not, because despite how old the woman was, she looked pretty tough. And Finn didn't think he had much chance at five-on-one.

"Not here to talk, either." The woman had a heavy accent that Finn had never heard before, and it was clear from how stilted she was speaking that English wasn't her first language. Finn looked at her again, and the guys, trying to figure out what was going on. "You know why here I am."

Kurt rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I was expecting you a couple of years ago," he snapped. "It's a little late, now."

"Kurt, who are these guys?"

"Just better armed, more arrogant versions of Karofsky," Kurt answered, as if that made the five of them a simple annoyance.

The four of them that were moving were as quiet as death. Although Finn had never seen anything quite like what they were wearing, it looked similar to what martial art guys wore when they fought. And now they were armed? "That's not very encouraging," Finn whimpered.

The woman chuckled at that. "Come now, Kurt-Hummel." (and how weird was it the way she said that, like she didn't know she didn't have to say both names every single time) "Show your friend what you do."

"I've already offered to show Finn what I can do," Kurt sniffed in disgust. "Trust me, he's not interested."

"Wasting time," she sighed. She gestured to the man closest to Kurt, and before Finn could even blink this new guy had lunged forward and struck Kurt across the face. Hard enough to knock the boy to the ground.

Finn was on his knees at Kurt's side as fast as he could manage (which was triple the amount of time the attack had taken). Finn looked up at the woman, shocked. What was going on? Was this a bashing? Since when did women do that? Finn thought that women were usually cool with gays. Was this woman from that church that hates everyone? "Stop it. He didn't do anything to hurt you."

"I know." The woman seemed disappointed.

Kurt stood up, not seeming to notice the split lip he had or the parasol abandoned on the ground, as he glared at the leader of this odd little band. "It's all right, Finn. Trust me, she'll get bored any minute and disappear for another ten years."

The man that had just hit Kurt grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him so they were face to face. "NOW, [little pogol]!" he insisted, the one word Finn could understand making the older woman's English sound practiced in comparison. Finn had no idea what the man had just said, but it seemed to refer to Kurt, and Kurt glared daggers in response.

The older woman shook his head, quite clearly disappointed this time. "[Try the other.]"

Finn had a split second to wonder what she'd just said, before the guy punched him. Finn went down hard, his vision graying for a second. He didn't know why the guy hit HIM so much harder.

He had to have been. Because otherwise that would mean that Kurt was a lot tougher than he looked.

Kurt stepped in between Finn and his attacker. Oddly enough, he seemed more annoyed than frightened. "Stop it!"

"You know what to do to stop it," the woman told him.

"What's wrong with you?" Finn asked. "You really want him to hit you that badly? So what, you can say the gay provoked you?"

The woman was confused, and Kurt actually chuckled. But in that dark way that he'd started since the attack. That chuckle that meant this was pressing down on that bruise in his head killing those guys had caused. "Oh, this isn't a gay bashing. It's just a test."

"More," their attacker insisted. "Kill him you no fight."

Finn's blood went to ice, but Kurt just turned to the woman, exasperated. "You're unbelievable," he snapped. "Other people's grandmother's would have been on their hands and knees with a Dolce & Gabbana gift card after not being there for a decade. You? It's just get on with the emotional blackmail."

Finn was trying to take in THAT stunning bit of info when Kurt turned back to the guy that had hit them. Kurt tossed his hands up, melodramatically. It didn't LOOK like a surrender, and Finn had never heard the word that Kurt just used.

The attacker moved so quickly, it looked to Finn like he was in fast forward. Finn screamed Kurt's name.

Intellectually, Finn knew that Kurt had killed the guys that broke in to the house. But Kurt was just so little, so used to fighting with words, that Finn had assumed that the four deaths had been an accident. That the meth addicts had just stumbled onto the kitchen knives Kurt had had in his hands. It never occurred to Finn that Kurt might have done it on purpose.

At least that was what Finn thought until Kurt dodged the blow with Matrix like efficiency, at a speed that equaled his attacker's. And kicked the guy in the back with the same movement. Finn was amazed. All the fear and self doubt Kurt had carried with him throughout June suddenly seemed gone. Finn was reminded of what Kurt had once said about the night of the attack. That while it was happening Kurt had at least felt like he was in control.

They fought for a few minutes, a style Finn had never seen before. And might shortly not be able to see, if they kept moving at this ever increasing speed. But all too soon, the man stopped his attack, and pulled out the weapon Kurt had forecast. It looked like a two pronged fork, but in a split second it had telescoped out to a good five feet in length.

The two now-spear points on the one end looked deadly, and Finn could now see that the S-shaped shield on the other end was razor sharp as well.

Kurt took off his messenger bag, quickly emptied it, and held it in what looked like some kind of attack position. He snapped something in that weird language again, directed at the man in front of him again. The only words that Finn caught were Salvatore Ferragamo and 1900 dollars, which Finn remembered from his mom's excited/horrified gasp last month referred to the bag. The man chuckled, and tossed the… whatever he was holding at Kurt.

Kurt caught it with one hand, setting down the bag with a grateful nod. He waited just long enough for the man to pull out a second weapon before Kurt, amazingly, attacked HIM. They were once again moving at a speed Finn could follow, and he was shocked (he'd lost count how many times that had happened today) that Kurt seemed to know how to use that… whatever, as well as the other guy could.

At least, it seemed like that at first. As the action once again sped up, it was clear that Kurt wasn't nearly good enough to hold his attacker off for long. Kurt was already starting to back off after his attacks, which Finn guessed from what he'd seen of boxing was probably a bad sign.

The other guy pressed his advantage, driving Kurt back one swing at a time. Finn didn't realize that he was starting to follow until his foot kicked something.

Finn looked down to see Kurt's bag. Kurt had just told him that this was some kind of test, but Finn wasn't about to stand there when Kurt might be seriously hurt in the next few seconds.

And it wasn't like this would be the first test he'd cheated on.

Finn picked up the bag, and the second the guy attacking Kurt raised his… fork thing, Finn swung the bag at him. All he was aiming to do was hit the guy in the head, maybe distracting him long enough for Kurt to get a good hit in.

He distracted the guy, all right. The bag was just big enough that the shield end of the guy's weapon ended up inside it. Finn didn't want to think about what the tips were doing to the inside of the bag (he belated realized that he'd probably ruined Kurt's extremely expensive bag at the very moment that Kurt was both pissed off AND armed), but the guy was surprised enough to halt his attack, and look backwards at what he was caught up on.

Kurt took the opportunity to slam the shield end of HIS weapon into the guy's face.

The remaining three guys seemed to think this was funny, the youngest barely holding back a laugh. The woman (was she really Kurt's grandmother?) said something that was probably 'stop', given that both Kurt and the other guy moved into what looked like a rest stance. Kurt offered up the weapon he'd been given but the satisfied if embarrassed looking guy waved it off. Kurt un-telescoped it and tucked it into the back of his waistband, with a smoothness that once again said he knew what he was doing.

The woman said something else. Kurt's jaw tightened, and he replied in that same weird language. Kurt gestured to Finn, and the woman nodded and switched to English. "Haven't forgotten all, hmm?"

"I remember everything," Kurt declared, venomously. "So does my dad."

The woman's mouth twitched uncomfortably at that. "Much to talk about have we. See you an hour after the evening meal I will."

Kurt was clearly set to refuse this, but the woman swept off before he could get a syllable out. Her entourage followed, the youngest guy giving them a seemingly warm smile before he left.

There was a moment of silence as they watched their attackers vanish into the late afternoon. Finn finally turned to Kurt and asked, "What the hell just happened?"

"GAH! Finn, if this is how you react to 'later', our parents are going to have to break up again. Because I am NOT celebrating Christmas with 'this'."

Carole smiled, hearing the boys come in the front door even though she was busy preparing dinner. Whatever they were arguing about didn't seem to be all that serious, and it was actually cute hearing Kurt get worked up like this. At least he had something normal to get worked up over. It had only been in the last few days that Kurt could actually come in the kitchen and not think about what had gone down there.

Burt must have agreed, as he leaned over her shoulder (okay, he was grabbing a mushroom out of the bowl she had in her hand, as well) with a smile. "You can just see him making that frustrated little hand gesture at Finn when he's saying that."

"Come on! Kurt, you can't expect me to not be curious. Especially after what your grandmother just pulled."

Carole turned to Burt with an eyebrow raised in surprise. As a general rule, neither Hummel talked about Kurt's grandmother and Carole was suddenly itching with curiosity, just as her son was. That curiosity turned to alarm, however, when she saw Burt's reaction. "Honey, are you okay?"

Burt looked like the weight of the world had just been dropped on him, but he squared his shoulders. Concerned, but unsurprised. "Yeah, I-"

Kurt stormed into the kitchen, with Finn in tow. They both seemed satisfied to see Carole and Burt both there, and Kurt slammed what was either a long fork or the world's oddest signpost onto the table. Cutting off whatever Burt was going to say. "Grandmother paid me a little visit this afternoon," Kurt snapped.

Burt sighed. "I can't say I'm surprised."

Finn could though. "She tried to kill me! Well, her goons did!" Carole gasped, but Kurt was shaking his head.

"That was just her trying to manipulate me," he stated. "She wouldn't have really killed you."

"You're sure?" Carole asked, worried.

"He's sure," Burt told her. "Bebe, she- I don't want to freak you out, but I know she didn't try to kill him. If she did, he'd be dead."

"Precisely." Although Kurt didn't seem at all pleased by it.

Burt turned to his son, and Carole was embarrassed to realize that she hadn't even thought about how Kurt was. "You okay?" Burt asked.

Kurt looked rattled. Not as much as he had after the break-in, but more than he'd ever been before that. But he just nodded, "Yes. I've gotten used to being irritated."

Burt almost smiled at that. "She has that effect on people."

"She's coming here after dinner," Kurt grumbled. "No doubt wanting me to enter the trials next."

"Kurt, you had to expect that she'd be here for you eventually."

"I don't care!" Kurt shouted. "Where was she all these years? Where was she when Mom died? I don't care if she got in a fight with you, she wasn't there for me. So pardon my language, but FUCK! HER!"

Finn raised his hand awkwardly. "I'm gonna have to go with Kurt on this one."

"I wish it was that simple," Burt told him.

"Burt, what's going on?" Carole asked, totally confused. "I'm guessing some of this is about when your wife died, but I'm not following."

Burt looked over at Kurt, like he was expecting something. Apparently he was because Kurt nodded before Burt continued. "We've been wanting to tell you about this for a couple of months. I guess now's the time. Carole, dinner looks great. But I'm guessing after what Bebe put Kurt through, this isn't gonna hold him. Just give me a minute to order some dry ribs and I'll explain everything."

Burt pulled out his phone and stepped away for a minute. It was quiet only briefly before Kurt started fidgeting. "I wish she was coming back tomorrow. I had this all planned out. There were supposed to be stars. The stars were vitally important to the explanation."

Carole wished there was something she could do to make Kurt not look so unhappy. Finn must have agreed because he put a calming hand on Kurt's shoulder. "Kurt, it's okay. Just tell us; if it's 'vitally important', we can just pretend there are stars."

Kurt looked up at Finn, grateful (Carole hoped she hadn't just seen Kurt fall madly in love with her son again). "You heard about that planet they discovered? The one that they think might have life on it?"

"Yeah, we talked about it at work a couple of days ago," Carole told him, not sure what that had to do with what was going on.

"They got it all right, even the tidal lock," Kurt noted, "The scientists studying it gave it a letter designation, but we call that world Sateen.

"That's where my mom was born. That's where she died."

(to be continued)