Beiste studied her team, she could see the nervousness, she could feel the excitement but she can't help but look at her captain and inhale deeply. Charlie was staring at her hands and wiggling them, a frown on her face. She decides to ignore her eccentric captain for a moment, and focus on giving a rousing inspirational speech. "I am proud of each and every one of you. You've all put in the work and you've grown as a team and you earned your spot here. I'm going to need you to take a beat when you get in there, and just take it all in. Take in the moment and then focus on what you have to do. I'm going to be on communications with Marley, everyone and I do mean everyone keep your communicator's on. We have no idea what to expect but we've done the work and you've worked on the basics. Trust in your training and trust in your teammates."

The air on the bus shifted slightly and Beiste turned to Charlie who was now lifting her arms and muttering to herself. "Charlie? Do you have any words of encouragement for the team?"

Charlie stops and looks over at the rest of the team, she blinks and looks over at Santana, who immediately rolls her eyes and looks away. Charlie makes a face, she didn't feel a hundred percent. She was very aware when her body was firing on all cylinders and today wasn't that day. "Santana—"

"I want to hear some encouraging words," Santana interrupts before Charlie can try and pin it on her. Charlie was their captain, and personally she could do with a good laugh before they needed to get serious.

Charlie shot a look at Santana who smirked at her, with a sigh she stands up, "Today is your day you can make your mark, if this is what you really want to do, if you really want to be a hero, then today is the day that you prove it to the world. Be creative and take your time, there is no rush. I have your back and that's why we designed the flair system, even if we have our communicators, you know how I feel about relying on technology. It can break in the heat of battle, so if you need me use your flairs, and I will drop what I'm doing and coming and help. This is for emergency situations only, situations you know you can't win. If you want to impress then you need to climb obstacles that they put in front of you. With that said, I imagine the commission is going to attempt to increase the difficulty so I don't do what I did at sectionals again. They want to keep the integrity of the games, which means they will be testing me. So, depending on the test, I will be trying to make sure that each of you gets a chance to shine. Santana, Blaine, I will be pulling who I need depending on the situation. Figure it out amongst yourselves how you're going to handle the entire team when I pull you."

The team immediately breaks out into excited chatter as Charlie goes back to trying to shake her body back into working order. Rachel raises her hand and there's a groan from Kurt at the back, but Charlie looks at her and nods. "What's the criteria?"

Charlie sighed, she really should have gotten around to her talk with Rachel ages ago. She'd been putting it off because she really disliked cleaning up after Quinn's messes. "Rachel, I know I give off the impression that I only care about food and sex but I am taking this seriously. I will put you in a situation where you will shine. I spent all my time watching you guys grow, I had a hand in it. I know exactly what you are capable of, and more importantly I know what you all think you're capable of. In most situations, you guys are underestimating yourself. In some you're overestimating your abilities at this point but I mean there's nothing wrong with confidence, and some of you are capable of matching where you think your abilities are, if you put in the effort. Trust me."

Santana stood up hoping that it staved off Rachel attempting to undermine Charlie's authority right now, "We're getting off the bus now, we will be bombarded by flashing lights and people trying to interview us. Ignore that, focus on winning a national championship. It'll be easier to do interviews when we're the ones with all the gold."

Beiste shook her head, morale was high and that was all she could ask for as they had worked hard to be here. She hoped the team enjoyed every moment of this, because for some of them it would be their only chance to feel like the rock stars that she knew that they could be if people had faith in them. The industry however was saturated with heroes. "I'll be dropping off our updated roster with the commission, but get ready for the competition we've got an hour before we need to hit the field, Charlie try to keep the incidents to a minimum while I'm gone." She had made last minute additions to the roster with Charlie before lights out.

~ O ~

"I still think you should have brought my nephew," Brittany huffed as she took a seat beside Frannie and immediately placed her head on her shoulder to see what she was up to. "What are you doing?"

"Michaelis with his grandparents this weekend, his father's parents apparently have rights or something." Frannie frowned and looked over at Brittany. "Where's Mike?"

"He's getting us food and drinks with mom and grandpa," Brittany replies. "I think grandpa wants to threaten him a bit. I did tell him that despite how he looks grandpa is secretly a teddy bear, and I'm his favorite so he's super protective over me."

Frannie rolled her eyes as she began to tap the screen on her tablet, taking in all the information. She makes a face, "Why is Quinn on McKinley's roster?"

"What?"

"She's an alternate," Frannie said, glancing at Brittany. "Does she—"

"No, she spent all night complaining about how Marley and Rachel were being forced to share a room together. I'm pretty sure that would have taken precedence given how much Quinn hates when Charlie surprises her. I was pretty sure that Charlie didn't want Quinn on the team because Quinn has the worst control out of the four of us. Isn't it a bit risky to have Quinn competing?"

"She's an alternate, so she might not even compete, probably why Charlie didn't ask for permission," Frannie mused. "Though given the level of competition, it does show that Charlie is taking this semi-seriously. Personally I imagine that this year there will be numerous protests from the schools at how difficult they've made the competition this year. Truthfully though this is the level of difficulty that they should be aiming for, most students who enter the collegiate level, and go onto hero courses, aren't actually prepared for the level they should be operating at. It's why I'm actually pleased that they are making the Combine more of a training camp for promising young heroes."

"As if you don't enjoy torturing freshmen," Brittany teased.

Frannie smirked, she did enjoy breaking the freshman class. It was why she was considering a position at K2 rather carefully. The 2.5 million dollar signing bonus and the 15 million dollar contract for five years was rather promising, and with her powers, it wasn't as if she actually needed to relocate anywhere. She opens another page up on her tablet and lets out a low whistle. "You can't get involved, Britt, there are far too many eyes on this, and given how the government already suspects that you're hiding your abilities, you can't actually go around just healing people. They will notice."

Britt rolled her eyes, "I know, I know. I mean it's not as if we can't just ask grandma Rose. The government knows about her. I mean they think she's a hippy who smokes way too much weed, which is an accurate statement, but it is where I get my abilities from."

"My mother and father have escaped into the RV life and have ditched modern technology, so they don't even have a phone," Russell informed them as he took a seat beside them. "I mean that's assuming that they're still alive. I haven't seen them or talked to them in a few years. Once she finds out that she's a great grandparent she might actually get a phone so they can see the new baby and have pictures."

Brittany blinked and shot her dad an unimpressed look. She could understand why he had overcorrected and had become more corporate since both his parents were hippies but to not even know if they were alive or dead, was beyond problematic. She knew that their mother was the driving force between getting them to learn their paternal grandparents but after the tattoo incident Judy hadn't been as magnanimous with her irresponsible grandparents. "Well, find them, and give them a phone. I have a few questions for grandma Rose." Officially Rose Fabray was the highest ranked healer in the country, and the most anti-government person she had ever met.

Russell groaned, she was right. He did need to keep in touch with his parents better, his mother would help alleviate some of Brittany's responsibility, and while his mother didn't have Brittany's level of control there wasn't an injury she couldn't heal. "I'll look into it," he's about to say something when he spots his ex-wife talking to a man rather animatedly and he feels a swell of white hot rage and jealousy. "Who fuck is that?"

Frannie and Brittany exchange looks with each other, "Probably mom's new boyfriend," Frannie answers flatly with a roll of her eyes.

Brittany snorts at the annoyed look Russell shoots at Frannie, who goes back to her work. "Jealousy isn't a good look dad, given your history."

Russell scowled, annoyed that he'd been betrayed by his children.

~ O ~

Nationals had always been a spectacle, but this year with the cash infusion by the government and several major hero firms, and corporations and this year they had outdone themselves. A sprawling city scape that was bustling with people. They weren't real people, merely life model decoys, but they had been programmed to act like they were real. Round camera drones whipped through the air capturing every last thing and emitting the data to the control center where it would be parsed and be projected around the world.

"Holy sh—" Tina swore as she threw herself to the side, as a car was hurled in her direction. It had been deflected off one of Matt's shields. It had been her mistake, she'd attempted to rush forward to get past the onslaught from the combined might of the Eastern schools. Matt was holding most of them off while Santana and Blaine were attempting to take out a few of them while the rest of the team tried to evacuate the area like they'd been told. She jumps when she feels a hand grab her wrist and drag her out of the way as large shards of glass land where she'd just been. The suddenness of being dragged causes her to reappear as Charlie pulls her to safety.

"We're not in a rush," Charlie reminded Tina, chiding her gently as she dusts her off. "Take your time and pick your moment, we've got this. Nerves are perfectly normal."

"What are you doing?" Santana snaps at Charlie as she barely manages to avoid a blast.

"I'm giving a pep talk," Charlie snaps back, before patting Tina on the shoulder. "You've got this. I have faith in you."

Tina nodded wordlessly and looked at the hell that they were in and turns back to Charlie, "Are you going to help or—"

Charlie rolled her eyes, Santana had been the one to get on her case about her lack of care that she gave to the team, "Fine, just this once." She turns to look at the Eastern team and immediately puts her headphones on, and pulls out her phone. "Matt! Going to need an opening." Charlie said as she took a sprint start position, as sparks erupted around her body.

Matt glanced over at Charlie, they had practiced this maneuver hundreds of times, it had taken forever to get the timing right. "Got it."

Charlie smiles and inhales and lets the music filter out all the noise, so she could simply focus on each goal. The moment the beat drops, her eyes start to glow and as she can feel her abilities expand, it's slightly slower than she's used to and she has to wonder if she's just a bit too excited that she was finally going to test herself. The moment that she takes a step forward Matt opens the shield and she lets go and slingshots herself through the hole.

Blaine immediately pulls back with Santana, entering Matt's field as Charlie gets to work making quick work of the resulting teams. He couldn't get over seeing Charlie simply overwhelm a team, and it didn't look like it cost her anything. She was practically a blur of movement as one by one people dropped, after being touched by Charlie falling to the ground in agony. He'd been in that position many times before, the pain never lasted long but he could always feel the pain lingering in his muscles like a faint memory for a few moments after the fact. The watch that they had been given by the commission, chirps and he glances at it. McKinley had taken the lead and had earned 10 thousand points already, the number jumping to nearly twenty thousand as Charlie finished up.

Santana rolled her eyes, as Matt dropped his shield and Charlie wandered back as if she hadn't just knocked out nearly 80 people without breaking a sweat. "Was that so hard?"

Charlie tilted her head to the side, distracted by something. "No, but we all know that doing this didn't help you. The commission is very aware that if I wanted to, then this event would be over by now, and as narcissistic as this sounds, they changed the rules so I don't just wipe everyone out so I can get to Charlotte. They don't want me interacting with the other teams, that's why they have professional heroes as bounties for me to go after."

"She's right," Rachel offers, and is promptly ignored by Santana, Blaine and Charlie. She frowned and glanced over at the team, noticing that everyone was waiting for their next series of orders. She immediately bites her lip, and decides to simply wait.

"Well the overall plan doesn't actually change does it?" Blaine questions frowning slightly as a camera drone darts between them.

"Shouldn't it though?" Santana points out. "We can get points in three ways, the bounties, capturing and taking out members of other teams, and putting them in 'jail' and by rescuing LMDs. There are 10 bounties of 5 thousand or more, we can go for the lower level bounties and simply focus on rescuing LMDs that get in the way. None of the other schools are going to want to tangle with us, but fighting professional heroes will earn us points."

Charlie flicks her eyes to Santana for a moment, "No. Look, I don't think we're going to be one of the bottom five teams today, but we still don't know all the rules here. We don't know what's going to cost us points, so I think we need to play this a bit more conservatively Santana, at least until we can figure out the rules."

"So we're choosing marathon over sprint?" Blaine clarifies.

"We're in the lead for one, but that can change depending on how points are awarded. I took out 80 people and only got 18,100 points. And it's not like you hadn't taken out a few on your own and no points were awarded."

Santana blinked and immediately looked at her watch, sure McKinley was number one but Charlie was right, they might have taken the lead but the numbers seemed to be off. She touches her watch and brings up a holographic scoreboard. "PVA took out a member of the Bayside Tigers and earned 250 points."

"We lost points," Blaine said after running the numbers in his head. "Does it matter though? We're still in the lead."

"It does if we want to come in first," Santana muttered with a frown on her face. Charlie was right they had no idea how points were deducted and a costly mistake could put them on the edge. They needed time to figure things out right now, and once they did they could figure "So who's doing what?"

Charlie flicked her eyes between Santana and Blaine. She hadn't ever had anyone she could depend on. The Four Horsewomen had met in highschool at the Inter-high, maybe in the future they could all work together. "Santana—you're on rescue."

Santana's eyes widened, it's only for a moment but this was only day one, and McKinley needed to make a strong showing. "Alright, I know you've already chosen which professional heroes you're going to pick off."

"All of them," Charlie replied, cracking her knuckles and stretching out her shoulders. "Even if McKinley wins, I don't want anyone to say that they just gave it to me so I could fight Charlotte Flair. So, I'm just going to set a few records and use this as a warmup."

Blaine glanced at Santana, "Don't get carried away."

Charlie smiled, one that didn't fill anyone with confidence. She was totally going to get carried away. "Finn, Jake and—" Charlie tilted her head slightly as she looked at the team for combinations that she could make work. Her gaze falls on Rachel, she certainly had the firepower these days to be useful, but her attitude lately had become trying. "Rachel."

Rachel blinked, "Me?" She had truly expected to be chosen last, and when she spots the irritated look on Santana's face she takes a step back and looks at Charlie.

Charlie gave Rachel a look before turning to the rest of the team. "Slow and steady will this is a three day event, we don't rush, We take our time and just execute the game plan. That's how we win."

~ O ~

"Well that was within our expectations, was she always this fast?" Elliot asked, he could barely keep up with how fast Charlie had been moving.

Dani stared at her ex for a moment, Charlie's growth had always been insane, but she had thought like most that it would slow. "I don't know, I'm beginning to think that we honestly don't know just how strong Charlie is, and I think that on a good day Charlie beats Charlotte Flair easily, we need to rethink how we handle Charlie. Charlie is still Charlie, which means as long as we don't get in her way she probably won't go after schools or us."

"We can't just let McKinley do whatever they want," Elliot points out. "They've already got a sizeable lead."

"No one said we're going to let McKinley do whatever they want, I'm saying that we need to avoid Charlie's attention. She will react if she notices us and perceives us as an annoyance. We aren't a threat to her, and she's shown that multiple times, so we force Charlie to change her game plan and we take out her two support pillars. Santana and Blaine, are the people she trusts the most on the team, so we take them out and force Charlie to support the team instead of doing whatever she wants, and while she's doing that we take out some of the pro heroes ourselves."

Elliot lips curled into a scowl, Charlie had always been a massive pain in his ass, and he was sure she didn't actually know his name. "We would need to work in conjunction with another team, but after that display I don't think any other team will go after McKinley, and I would rather have the cover of another team in case we go too far and piss her off."

Dani was quiet for a moment, "Make contact with Lauren Zizes, Vocal Adrenaline has been smacked around Charlie for two competitions, St. Jackass, has always been opportunistic shitbag he's not stupid. He's been bodied by Charlie twice now, he's going to avoid the confrontation. We shouldn't expect anything from the rest of Vocal Adrenaline but Zizes is a wild card and I know how much she fucking hates Charlie. Should be easy enough for you to manipulate those strings."

Elliot smirked, "I don't even think I need to use my abilities to get her to do our bidding."

"Make sure our hands look clean Elliot."

"Charlie doesn't know my name I doubt she knows what my powers are. You complained about it all the time, remember? She doesn't remember unimportant people. And her eyes were always on you so of course I was unimportant."

Dani narrowed her eyes at Elliott, "Don't underestimate her Elliott."

~ O ~

Holly Holiday smiled at Charlotte Flair as she leaned forward looking at the screen carefully. "Studying your competition?"

Charlotte scoffed and flicked her eyes at Holly Holiday, "I didn't get to where I am today by underestimating my opponent."

Holly let out a laugh, she wasn't going to let Charlotte rewrite history, let alone the present. She still had a nsty habit of dismissing her opponents. "Of course." She waits a moment before leaning in, "It's just that you have far more to lose if you actually lose. Charlie's 17, she's intelligent but she lacks experience, the media won't care if she loses. However if you lose—"

"You don't think I don't know that?" Charlotte interrupts, she takes a breath and looks back at the screen, tapping on the feed that she wants to keep watching Charlie's movements. "I am taking this seriously, I'm taking her seriously but I don't have the footage to actually study. There's very little footage of her actually trying."

"Is that all?" Holly laughed, "You should have just asked Charlotte, I have footage of her facing off against my senior class. They managed to push her. Obviously Charlie won, but she wasn't perfect, they caught her a few times and she needed to simply muscle her way out of it. She's a rookie."

Charlotte let out a laugh of disbelief, "That might be the case but she's Artemis July's grandchild. I saw her, I was commenting on ESPN and I saw her on one of the feeds, talking to Charlie. I would have actually trained for this fight if I had known. She was there after they finished my testing, when it was confirmed that I had actually broken through."

"Who?"

"Artemis, she was talking to someone in the government. I was young and stupid and because she was the only one who looked unimpressed, and I didn't know any better I challenged her to a fight."

"Ah."

Charlotte was quiet, "I might trade wins with Sasha, Becky might have my number, but I know that I can win. That I can beat them, but Artemis—"

"Ah. You have my sympathies," Holly whistled. "I do understand, and truthfully we should all be grateful that Quinn decided after a week that she didn't want to be a hero. If Quinn had Charlie's insane work ethic on top of her skill sets. Really the government has far more interest in Quinn. But, they are also very cognizant of the fact that pissing off both Artemis July and Rose Fabray are terrible ideas."

"Rose Fabray?"

"Their paternal grandmother. Officially the strongest healer in the States. She's not a level 5, at least she won't submit herself to testing and the government has a vested interest in keeping her happy."

"Unofficially?"

"We've long suspected Brittany Fabray of being a level 5. We can't prove it however, and once again Artemis is overprotective of her family especially her grandchildren. It's probably an open secret that she's hiding her true power; no one in the government actually believes that she's only a level 3. We just have zero idea how strong she is and she also refuses to submit herself to more testing. You're not wrong that the entire family is made up off monsters, Charlotte, but she is just a teenager who has never actually been in a fight where there was an actual possibility of dying."

Charlotte frowned, there just wasn't enough time to train for this fight, but she needed to trust that Holly was right and Charlie's lack of experience would come into play. She would just need to capitalize on every mistake the teenager made, and there was one person who she knew was excellent at sniffing out weaknesses, at being a counter fighter. It wouldn't take much convincing to get the commission to allow for another entry for today. A surprise entry would shake things up, and actually give Charlie a challenge.

~ O ~

"So you think so too."

Frannie's fingers drag across her tablet, switching to another candidate. "We need to put a bell on you." Frannie scowled at Brittany who had a massive smug grin on her face. "I have no idea what you're thinking. I'm doing my job." Frannie tilted her head at Dr. Lopez, who wasn't paying any attention, and then back at Brittany shooting her a dry look. "She's on several lists, and if not all of them. I expect she'll get an invitation to the Combine."

"Oh come on! You ship them too!"

"I—what?" Frannie asked, utterly confused as to what Brittany was talking about.

Brittany sighed and crossed her arms over her chest and decided to lay her head on Mike's shoulder. "You ship them right?"

"I do," Mike agreed easily, still focused on the action in front of him. The action had picked up rather quickly and things were finally in full swing after the feeling out period. He'd never been particularly interested in the world of heroes, and he'd never cared about the Inter-high or watched it before, but he finally understood why everyone else in high school was obsessed with this event. This was a spectacle and the amount of money that they'd poured in to test. He would be keeping up from now on. "Did you see how she took out all those people?" He asked, finally tearing his eyes off the screen and turning to Britt, who shot him an unimpressed look and he clears his throat. "I just—"

Brittany flashed him a smile, she'd been teasing him, and turns to her family. "So, what's the bet today?"

"Britt!" Judy admonished, flushing when Miguel looked at her, not noticing how Russell's eyes narrowed. "The kids like to bet on each other's lives," she explains.

Quinn laughed and pulled out her wallet and pulled out a crisp twenty. "All that's left of my birthday money is what I'll put up."

Brittany whistled, "You can't be a part of the bet. You're an alternate, you could rig it in your favor."

The amused smile on Quinn's face froze before there was a sudden chill in the air. "What?"