Disclaimer: I don't own anything. RIB (sadly) owns pretty much everything, and I'm only using the characters for fun.

*R*

15 minutes before she met Santana for lunch…

'I can't believe I'm going to be late. That doesn't even sound right. I should never be late, I'm Rachel Berry. Rachel Berry and 'late' should never be in the same sentence, unless the words 'never' and 'is' are in it too.'

Rachel was upset. Her last class had been held up by the Spanish teacher's announcement of a new Glee club. Mr. Schuester was the new Glee Club director and he needed more students to join his club, but the man didn't seem to know that anyone who was to join his club would be committing social suicide. Even Rachel knew that. To be honest, Rachel had wanted to join. She saw the signup form in front of the office, and was tempted to write her name on it (with a golden star at the end, of course) but the petite girl knew that she would immediately be targeted by the school bullies. They would torment her, she would fight back, they would recognize her fighting spirit, she would be known all around school, and that would mess up her 'Anonymous civilian, courageous Hero' persona. She just wanted to get through high school without being noticed.

Rachel also knew that her dream to be a Broadway star, and her super hero powers would never go well together, but the girl always thought that she would cross that bridge when she gets there.

'For now, I'll just be an anonymous student by day and a fiery super hero by night.'

…

Rachel's thoughts were interrupted when a loud, obnoxious laughter was heard throughout the hallway. Rachel turned to see a boy with glasses in a wheelchair that was cornered by a single jock. The jock was holding a large cup filled with something cold, and he looked like he was holding it like a weapon. Rachel looked around. Nobody seemed to be paying any attention to what was happening, just an everyday occurrence. Rachel was having an argument with herself. She desperately wanted to help the boy (he looked like he was going to piss himself) but she obviously didn't want anyone to see her rescue the boy.

Rachel didn't stand there deciding for long, because as soon as the large jock reared back his arm and was about to throw the contents of it on the boy, the small girl reacted. Faster than humanly possible, she ran to the jock and threw a perfect punch right on his chin. With a soft thud, the jock crumpled to the floor, and the slushy had splashed all over his large body. Rachel went behind the boy in the wheelchair and immediately started rolling him away. She looked around to see if anyone had seen what just happened. Students were gathering around the jock's body and no one paid her and the boy any attention. Rachel was glad that her good deed went unnoticed.

The small girl looked down at the boy in the wheelchair, to find him already staring back up at her with wide eyes and an open mouth. Rachel resisted the urge to giggle. He looked funny with a stupefied look on his face.

"Are you, like, a ninja goddess sent here to protect the weak and the disabled?"

Rachel's laugh was drowned out by the noise from students all around them.

"That's flattering, but no"

"Are you sure? 'Cause you just knocked out Azimio Adams with one punch just to save a loser like me. That seems like something your people would do. By the way, my name is Artie"

The sound of gratitude in Artie's voice made Rachel smile widely. If this was what it felt to be appreciated by the person/people she would save, she might get used to this hero thing.

"Nice to meet you Artie, my name is Rachel. And what do you mean by 'my people'?"

"So, there aren't more ninja goddesses out there? That's disappointing." Artie did a mock pout.

Rachel laughed once more. She liked Artie's sense of humor.

The boy in the wheelchair was talking excitedly about his rescue form the jock, and Rachel just kept pushing his wheelchair. And as Rachel kept pushing Artie`s wheelchair, she heard two voices calling for the boy`s name behind her. The small girl turned around to find another pale boy and a dark skinned girl. At first glance, Rachel knew that the other boy was gay. The way he dressed, walked and basically move screamed gay for Rachel, and the other, much larger girl, was carrying a stack of papers.

''We've been looking everywhere for you! We were supposed to meet up and put up these glee sign up forms ten minutes ago. Mr. Schue was worried that the jocks stuck you in the urinals again."

Before Artie could say anything, Rachel answered for him.

"Artie was cornered by that Azimio guy, I had to step in and help him out. Oh, and my name is Rachel."

Rachel held out her hand, and the other two teens looked at her weird at first, then with hesitant smiles. They looked at Artie, and the boy just smiled widely and gestured at Rachel with thumbs up. The two finally looked back at the stranger and shook her hands.

"I'm Kurt Hummel, and thanks for helping Artie out" Kurt said with a smile of his own

"I'm Mercedes Jones" Mercedes said, looking like she was starting to like Rachel already.

Then, Kurt took a piece of paper from Mercedes' stack and taped it (Rachel wasn't sure where Kurt pulled the tape out of) to a nearby wall.

"Would you like to help us tape up all these posters? Me and Mercedes already put up pretty much half of the posters since Artie didn't show up to the meeting."

Rachel was about to agree to help when the word 'meeting' made something click inside her brain.

'I forgot about my meeting with Santana!'

Rachel remembered that she was already late and helping Artie had made her even more late. That would not do. No, not at all. Rachel was starting to get upset again.

"I'd love to help you guys out, believe me, I do, but I'm supposed to meet up with another friend of mine for lunch, and I'm already late. If I don't hurry up, she might leave and think I stood her up or something. So, I'm sorry but I'm gonna go now. Very nice meeting you guys though."

Rachel turned around and ran without a glance back.

The other three teens stood in their spots looking at the small girls back as she got farther and farther from them.

"Nice meeting you too…" Kurt said to no one.

…..

PRESENT TIME

*S*

"Nice to meet you, Quinn" Rachel said.

"Nice to meet you too, Rachel. I gotta say you have a pretty name." Quinn said in response.

"Thanks!" Rachel grinned.

Santana watched the two closely. Quinn was still holding Rachel's hand in a handshake, and Rachel was not making any effort to remove her hand. Santana felt a weird sense of annoyance at Quinn's actions towards Rachel. The two were talking, but it didn't take long for Brittany to start wanting to play with Rachel, so the taller blonde walked up behind Rachel and scooped her up bridal style. Rachel shrieked at first, and then started giggling loudly.

"We're going down to the field to play!" was all Brittany said before disappearing down the aisles.

"What are you playing at, Fabray?"

Santana didn't waste any time pulling Quinn back and getting in her face. Quinn looked unaffected and calm. The blonde had her bitch face on, and so did Santana.

"What I'm playing at? What are you talking about Santana? Rachel seems like a nice girl."

Santana didn't look convinced.

"Yeah, I know. That doesn't explain why you like girls all of a sudden. You were acting pretty chummy with her, weren't you? You wouldn't have let her hand go too, wouldn't you?"

Quinn's mask cracked when Santana made a mention about her sexuality.

"Listen, Santana. Rachel is a nice girl, and I like her as a friend. The only reason I acted like that was to make her feel welcomed enough so that when I ask her to be in the Cheerios, she wouldn't think twice about saying yes."

"What?!" Santana's eyebrows went up.

"Come on, San. Have you seen her legs? What about her body? She looks like she's into sports. If she joined Cheerios, we're definitely going to win on our first year here." Quinn said.

Santana shifted her weight from foot to foot. She was uncomfortable with Quinn talking about Rachel's (Very magnificent and beautiful) body. Santana had thought about asking Rachel to join the Cheerios, but Santana wasn't sure if the smaller girl would either join the track team. When Quinn didn't get a response, she pressed her point further.

"Think about it this way, if Rachel joins the Cheerios, she's going to be closer to you. I know you want to charm your way into her pants, and trust me when I say that this is the fastest way to do it. Remember, she going to close to you."

Quinn let that sink in for a moment, before turning around and walking away.

The hazel-eyed blonde almost didn't hear Santana when she said in a dejected tone voice:

"Yeah, but she's gonna be close to you too…"

Quinn kept walking.

*R*

The rest of Rachel's day was uneventful. When she and Brittany had come back for Santana at the end of lunch, the latina looked distracted and a little bit down. The two tried and succeeded into cheering her up, but Rachel knew that Santana's change in attitude might have something to do with the pretty blonde Quinn missing.

Speaking of Quinn, Rachel had to admit that she was pretty (duh, you had to be blind not to notice) and she could easily have liked her as much as she liked Santana. But Rachel knew that she couldn't act on any of her feelings because, if someone close to her would ever figure out about her secret, they would be in immediate trouble. Rachel could always take care of herself. It's her parents and friends that can't.

…

As soon as Rachel got home, she had looked for her daddy, Leroy. The large man was sitting in his office (as usual) and was focused on the document in front of him.

"Hi, Daddy!"

Rachel yelled out to surprise him. Leroy jumped out of his seat, and looked at the door way of his office, to see his one and only daughter. He chuckled as Rachel ran up to him and gave him a giant hug.

"How was school? You seem a little happy." He said

"It was good! I made a few friends today. Oh, and I saw Brittany too" Rachel said happily

Rachel went on about her day while Leroy listened to his daughter. The two ended up talking outside in their backyard while eating a vegan sandwich Rachel had made. As Rachel had finished talking about her day, she asked her Daddy what he did for his. Leroy gestured at the little garden they had in the backyard a few feet away.

"I got some pretty cool rocks today, and I used them to decorate a bit." Leroy said.

Rachel stood up from where she was sitting and looked around the garden. There were three or four (maybe five) large stones and quite a few smaller ones. At first glance, the stones looked nothing special, but upon closer inspection, the stones looked…weird? Interesting? Rachel didn't know how to describe them. They looked like nothing special, but Rachel had a weird feeling of familiarity to them. It was weird, it's like she'd seen them before or something. The stones were smooth and Rachel thought they were pretty. She was about to pick one up, when her Daddy's voice cut through her thoughts.

"Please don't touch those, sweetie. It took me all morning to get them all organized and put there."

"Yeah… sorry, Daddy" Rachel shook her head and walked back to one of her fathers.

….

Later that night, when everyone in the house was asleep, Rachel snuck out and decided that she was going to fly around Lima to see if she could try to do something heroic. She ran to her training spot before setting herself ablaze and taking into the air.

The first few hours went by without much happening. She flew around the night sky observing and trying to see if she could do pretty much anything. When Rachel realized that there was nothing to do, she decided to go back to her training spot before finally going back home. When she was flying over the forest, Rachel noticed something in the forest. She landed and saw what looked like a battle field. There were burnt trees, smashed rocks, impact marks and scorched earth everywhere. Rachel walked around to inspect. Her right hand was ablaze to provide light, so she could see well. Rachel was sure that these marks weren't here when she last went here. She would remember if it were. She hadn't done anything crazy since a few months ago when she had accidentally set a forest fire during one especially intense training session (She obviously, put that out before it could get any worse. The cops still came to investigate though.)

Rachel heard some rustling behind her, and she immediately lit her whole body up and turned around. Rachel's whole body emanated light and she took a slow step towards the trees.

"Hello?"

The forest was quiet. A gust of wind blew, making leaves rustle. The only noise Rachel could hear was the leaves and nothing else. A few more moments pass by and Rachel takes another step closer. Still nothing. Rachel was starting to get the creeps looking into the dark. She decided to check again tomorrow after school, when it was lighter. The small girl gave one last glance into the forest before flying off into the sky.

….

*Q*

On the other side of town, a hazel-eyed blonde was lying down in her bed thinking of a certain brunette she met that day. Rachel was…nice. Quinn knew that Santana was right (She doesn't like it sometimes when Santana was right) she was already developing a crush on the petite girl.

'I mean, how can I not? She's hot, she's nice, and she's smart. At least that's what Britt said. I wouldn't doubt it if she was right. She looks too perfect. I'd understand if Santana is already half-way in love with her already. I seriously hope she isn't though. That would just suck. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I start making a move on Rachel when she's already going out with Santana.'

That night, she dreamt of a future with a girl she vowed she won't express her feelings for.

The Morning After

Quinn had just entered McKinley, when a random Cheerio had come up to her and told her that Sue was waiting for her. Quinn rushed to the coach's office minutes later. Sue was sitting on her desk with her arms crossed in front of her chest. She was looking at Quinn with deadly calmness.

"Q, sit down."

Quinn did.

"You and I both know that I'm going to need a new head cheerleader next year because the one I have right now is going to graduate by the end of this one."

Quinn nodded. The younger blonde didn't know where Sue was going with this, but she was sort of hoping that she could be the head cheerleader next year. Quinn knows that she was better than pretty much everyone else in the Cheerios right now, and the only logical thing for Sue to do was make her into the next HBIC. But with Sue, you can never be sure of anything. You could die thinking she was a friend (or allies, Quinn was sure that her coach didn't have friends), when in fact; she's the one that took out the brakes in your car that got you killed in a car accident in the first place.

"I'm sure you're aware that you're the best girl in the team at the moment. That means that you're the best of the best, because I don't take losers in my team. Anyways, you show great potential Q. If you promise to keep up the good work, you can consider the Head Cheerleader spot yours. Am I clear?"

Quinn was giddy with energy. She couldn't believe it! She was going to be the next Head Cheerleader!

Sue cleared her throat to get Quinn's attention again.

"Yes, coach. I won't let you down." Quinn said masked her happiness and answered calmly

"Good. Now get out of my office."

Quinn didn't need to be told twice. She was out of the door and into the hallways before Sue could blink.

Hey guys!

Okay, so I (somewhat) made the deadline. It's still a Wednesday, and I got a chapter out. I know its very short, but I have decided that since I haven't uploaded in almost a year, it's going to be better if I release shorter chapters one after another for the first few months before I go back to the old posting times.

Anyways...

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR REVIEWING AND FAVORITING, AND FOLLOWING AND ALL THOSE LOVELY THINGS. I SINCERELY APPRECIATE IT AND I HOPE YOU GUYS STAY WITH ME FOR HOWEVER LONG IT TAKES FOR ME TO END THIS FIC.

Oh, and I hope you guys dont mind if I use more characters from Pretty Little Liars?

And one more thing.

To coldplayfan12: Yes, Emily is still alive and is being held captive. Note that she is that way because she will be playing a bigger role (and adding more drama to Rachel's love life) a little later on in the story. I'm sorry if it seemed like she just appeared and disappeared like a random thought in someone's thoughts. But yeah, Emily will be back!

Please review!

p.s. Have you guys seen the naked Naya photo shoot?! (if you haven't, you're missing out)