Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
"I'm going to kill you", Rachel said calmly "You won't see it coming. This time, you definitely went too far."
"Hey, I'm sorry about that, okay? It didn't go according to plan for some reason." Santana looked down sheepishly. "I didn't want that to happen, seriously."
"Let's just focus on finding a way back instead of…" Kurt trailed off and flinched when a pain suddenly jolted through his head. He started massaging his temples.
"You alright, white boy?", Mercedes asked him worriedly and shortly touched his shoulder.
Kurt nodded. "Yes, I'm fine. So…what I wanted to say was that fighting won't help us."
"He's right", Sam agreed. "Santana, is there some way to reverse the spell or something?"
Santana pensively pinched the bridge of her nose. "I mean, yeah, there is, but…"
Just at that moment, someone else stepped over to them. "Can I help you? Did you get lost?", she asked them warmly.
The Latina wanted to wave her away. "No, no, we're good. Go awa-" she went silent when she had turned around and caught glimpse of the stranger, a young blond woman in her mid-twenties. She smiled at the five of them goofily. Her dress was light brown with puffy sleeves, she also wore a white bonnet hat. "My name is Brittany", she introduced herself politely. She looked them up and down with a frown when she noticed their clothes. "Are you foreigners?"
"K-kind of", Santana stammered.
"If you want to, I can show you around", Brittany offered, not looking away from Santana for even a second.
Before the others could say anything, Santana piped enthusiastically: "That would be perfect."
…
Rachel was not looking that thrilled while they followed Brittany to that village nearby. The citizens looked at them as if they were aliens, probably because of their twenty first century fashion. For some reason, though, they also looked at Brittany with a lot of distrust.
"What?", Mercedes barked at the onlookers belligerently when the staring became unbearable. "Have you never seen a black woman before, you ignorant pieces of - "
Sam reassuringly laid a hand on her left shoulder. "Just ignore them. They are not worth it."
She inhaled deeply and closed her mouth to suppress a lot of swears.
Kurt kind of looked pale for some reason. The only one who was thrilled was Santana who was chatting with Brittany in the front as if the two of them were old friends.
"This is insane", Rachel started ranting angrily. "How could she do this? She knows exactly we need to find a way back as soon as possible, but no, she chooses to flirt with some woman instead…"
"Guys, I don't feel good-"
"Not now, Kurt", the petite brunette cut him off "I mean, can you believe her? I can't. Sometimes, I just don't get how Santana is almost four hundred years old even though she acts so immature. And irresponsible. I just can't…"
She was unable to end her sentence because Kurt fainted right in front of their eyes.
…
While Kurt recovered from his dizzy spell at Brittany's tiny cottage, Sam went outside because the dust in the blonde's home had triggered his house dust allergy. Brittany's home was isolated from the village, she lived close to the forest. He wondered how the blonde wasn't afraid of savage animals that could kill her anytime. Suddenly, someone grabbed his arms and jerked him to the bushes. Sam was way too surprised to react.
"About time", that someone hissed after he had gotten his bearings.
Much to Sam's disdain, the person pointed an alien-weapon to his head. "Kaz?"
Kaz snorted at him. "Ready to die, blondie?"
"No, not yet", Sam answered earnestly.
Just when she was about to pull the trigger, Sam sighed and focused on his powers. He could literally feel how the time slowed down until the clock stopped ticking altogether. The best part about his powers was that he could decide whether to freeze people too or not. While Kaz in front of him didn't move, Sam slowly disarmed her, put out all the bullets, threw each one into different directions, and gave the weapon back to her. When the clock started ticking again, Kaz fired – and was stunned that her weapon held no bullets anymore.
"W-what the hey?!"
Sam smirked at her smugly. "Is there a problem?"
She tried again, but in vain. Frustrated, she let out a scream. "That was you, right, asshole?!"
"Calm down, or else, people will hear you. And that's not in your best interest, I assume?"
"Douchebag."
Sounded a lot like no. Sam shrugged. "Where are your friends? And how did you even land here with us? In this century?"
Kaz sighed deeply and rubbed her temples tiredly. "I followed you from the hotel. As soon as I saw you drive off, I hotwired a random motorbike and followed you all the way while the boys fought off that annoying cop. And just when I wanted to attack you, there was this wind, and next thing I knew, I landed here with you freaks."
"How is it possible we didn't notice you?", Sam wondered.
The blonde just shrugged. "That doesn't change my plans to eliminate you, though."
"Can't you just knock it off already?" Sam started to get annoyed. "You don't have any weapons on you right now, plus, you are alone. I, on the other hand, just need to call for help and all my friends are here faster than you can blink to put you down. Is that really what you want?"
Kaz sighed again. "No, I guess…" She slumped down on the tree trunk behind her, defeated. "So that means temporary peace?"
He nodded in agreement with a slight smile on his face. "Now that's more like it."
…
The girls looked at him perplexedly. Or let's say, Mercedes and Rachel did. Santana was busy testing the temperature of Brittany's mouth. With her tongue. Their instant chemistry was still hard to grasp. "Can you explain that again?", Mercedes asked him.
Kurt tiredly rubbed his head while he sat up in the wooden bed. "You remember how I told you about the nanobots in my system?"
"Yeah?"
"Well, they need an energy source, just like the microchip in my brain. But it's hard to recharge thousands of tiny devices that flow around in my body, so my aunt and uncle made sure they recharged themselves, kind of like a hand calculator that recharges itself with solar energy."
"And the solar energy in your case are other electronic devices?", Rachel theorized.
Kurt nodded. "Cellphones, computers, iPads, tablets, headphones, you name it. The nanobots don't take much from them, I barely notice when they do. Even if I was in the middle of nowhere, there are still lots of energy sources like utility poles and such, but that only applies to the twenty first century. But with no energy sources around here at all…"
"Shit. You're doomed, right?", Mercedes concluded. "I forgot my cell at the car."
"And my phone is dead", Rachel added. "So that means you…will…"
Kurt smiled at her faintly. "Yes, Rachel. If we don't make it back to our century in time, the disabled nanobots will interrupt my blood circulation and I will die. I guess that's good news for you, right?"
…
Meanwhile, Sam had also taken a seat on the tree trunk. "Kaz is not your full name, right?"
Kaz threw him a killing glance. "That's none of your fucking business." She continued staring at her black high-heeled boots with a frown.
"Hey…I get that you don't want to talk to me." Sam lifted his hands in surrender when he met her angry glance. "But…I don't know…my friend Bryson kind of forced me to read all those blogs about you and…I got the feeling that you are lonely. Is there something you want to talk about as long as we are trapped here?"
When Kaz stared ahead stubbornly, Sam sighed. "Okay. I get it. You don't want to talk."
They sat next to each other in silence.
"It's just…you don't seem to be like those superficial popstars of the tabloids", Sam eventually said.
"Gosh, can't you just shut up for once?"
"Okay, okay, I'm not gonna bother you anymore."
Silence.
"It's K'ashk'ada", Kaz finally answered his first question. "K'ashk'ada Kv'aviz."
"Talk about jawbreaker", Sam muttered. "I will just call you Cascada. Sounds majestic."
Kaz snorted again. "Almost. My dad is…what you humans would call a president. Only that we don't have presidential terms in our world. He will rule till the day he dies, so. No private life for me."
"Doesn't sound like an easy life." Sam gave her a look of commiseration. "That's why you want to take over our world?"
"You have no idea, human." Kaz shook her head slowly. "All eyes were on me because I was the first daughter. People expect me to be perfect. And…what can I say, it was tiresome. Annoying. My dad had high expectations, wanted me to get the best grades in school and marry the right dude. I was never good enough for him. So I ended up rounding up my best friends and setting off to earth."
"You wanted to prove him wrong, am I right? Show him you are indeed good enough for him, or better."
For a while, they were staring at each other intensely. Grey eyes met green ones. The tension around them was almost crackling.
Kaz cleared her throat awkwardly and quickly looked down. "Yeah, enough about me. What about you, time lord? How come you can stop time?"
The blond shrugged helplessly. Kaz opened up to him, it was only fair if he did the same. "I have absolutely no idea. They just popped up shortly after my eighteenth birthday. But I think that my mom is the reason I have those powers. I never got to know her because she just disappeared when I was still a baby…What?" The weird glances Kaz threw him made him nervous.
"You said you got those powers around your eighteenth birthday?", she asked curiously. "And you don't know who your mom is?"
"Yes. And no." Sam had no idea why she asked those questions.
The dirty blonde was taken aback. "Shit. On Caldran, there is that tribe that is able to use time stopping powers. Their abilities usually awaken when they hit adulthood – so at eighteen. Your mother might be one of them." Kaz looked at him intensely. "Dude, you might be half an alien."
…
"How can you say that?!", Rachel screamed at him angrily. "Why do you think I hate you that much?"
"Because you do", Kurt answered calmly. "That's okay. I don't like you either."
"And why? Only because of Diego? How often do I have to apologize so that you forgive me and move on?"
Kurt let out a scoff. "You know exactly that Diego is not the only reason I dislike you. The reason I cannot stand you is you, Rachel. You are oh-so perfect and far too good for the rest of us. You think you are the only talented person in the whole wide world. You are so full of yourself there is barely room for anyone else. It's got to be tough to be you, ever so perfect, am I right?"
Mercedes backed away and turned to Santana and Brittany. "Why don't we look at Brittany's garden, ladies?" Before the witch could say anything, the demigoddess had already dragged them out of the door.
Meanwhile, Rachel stared at Kurt with an open mouth. "That's…that's not true…"
"Oh, really? Remember our sophomore year? After we both got into the glee club, I tried befriending you, but you said you didn't need any friends. You knew very well I had no one else at school, but you didn't care. You only cared about yourself."
"I didn't know who to trust anymore", she defended herself. "Do you have any idea how many threats I got on my phone after I uploaded all my covers on YouTube and MySpace? People told me to kill myself, and that they would do it for me willingly if I didn't want to! They were anonymous, I was scared. I cried myself to sleep every night because no one liked that diva with he crooked nose. I tried to conceal it all with an extra thick layer of confidence. And until this day, I do." Rachel touched him on the chest indignantly. "You always gave the impression that everything was okay, even when those cool kids slushied you. You never even thought about asking for help or something. You with your head held high and your straight-As and your icy aura were no better than I was, even though you-"
"But nothing was fine for me!", Kurt blurted out with hot cheeks. "I was not fine at all. I… My life was a mess, and still is. I did a lot of things I'm not proud of today. I…" He took a deep breath. "I almost killed Dave Karofsky."