Quinn sighed, as she looked at the time on her phone. She wrinkles her nose at all the notifications on her screen, choosing to ignore the text messages as she slips her phone back into her pocket. She really hoped that Charlie didn't decide to drag this out and make a point. She really just wanted to go home and start working on her chemistry lab.

"Quinn Fabray! You've been ignoring me!"

Quinn stiffened and turned to look at Rachel who was marching up to her and immediately took a step back. "I haven't," it's a lie and they both know it, but before Rachel can call her on it, she quickly decides to double down on the lie. "I've just been worried about Charlie, the accident was my fault. My powers are tied to my emotions and lately they've been all over the place. I could have really hurt Rod, so I've just been working on you know getting my emotions under control."

Rachel turned to look at where Charlie was talking to Beiste, the new Hero Course teacher. "I talked to Charlie earlier today and I texted her while she was recovering. She texted back, and she was missing an arm."

"She was missing an arm for like a day," Quinn says defensively before wincing, as she blew a hole through her own argument. "The rest of the time she was fighting off an infection. The past two days she's just been getting pampered by our mother, and stuffing her face Rachel."

"She mentioned that in the texts, I have rather artsy pictures of all of her food," Rachel said holding up her phone. "I thought we were friends Quinn."

"We are, I just—" Quinn made a face, unsure of where to even begin climbing out of this hole that she had dug for herself.

Rachel wrapped an arm around Quinn's arm, "I understand that you may be worried Quinn, but we're friends, which means that when bad things happen you can rely on me just like I'd like to be able to come to you with any of my problems."

Quinn bit her lip, "You don't—I really wanted to hurt him Rachel. I mean if Charlie hadn't gotten involved I might have actually killed him, and even though Charlie swears she's fine, she's been working on that arm of hers. Brittany says she's fine and Charlie can use her powers but what if she hadn't been. I just had a lot of shit that I needed to think about. I didn't mean to just freeze you out."

Rachel relaxed a bit, "I know you may have things to work through, and it is okay if you don't necessarily feel like talking, just let me know to give you some space. I realize that I may have come across as needy, at least that's what Kurt said."

Quinn narrowed her eyes at the statement, "You were worried about me, that doesn't make you needy. If anyone is needy it's me," Quinn says bluntly. She really didn't like Kurt or Mercedes, and she needed to figure out how to convince Rachel that she could do better than them as friends.

Rachel smiles and looks over when she feels a massive influx of heat and turns to look at Santana. She had always admired how impressive Santana looked every single time she used her abilities, her entire body was covered in flames. "Santana looks like she's ready. Even as kids she was always like that. I mean from a young age everyone has been telling her how amazing she is. I don't think she's ever quite met someone like your twin."

Quinn studied Santana before looking at Charlie, who for once at least had the decency to pretend that this was of some interest to her. "This won't take long."

Rachel turned to look at Quinn, "I know that Charlie is powerful but in all of her other meetings Santana lasted at least a few minutes."

"Charlie wasn't trying then, I doubt she's really even trying now. Charlie makes it flashy because that's what people want to see. They want to see the electricity, they want to see things being torn apart and on all of that Charlie can deliver. But everyone seems to forget that the human body is made up of nerves and those nerves carry electrical impulses."

Rachel's head turns to look at Charlie for a moment, "She can control people?"

Quinn shrugged her shoulders, she wasn't sure if Charlie could puppeteer people. "That would probably take too much concentration and finesse, but she can disrupt the electrical impulses. Which means—"

"This fight won't last very long," Rachel finished for Quinn.

Charlie opened her bag and pulled out a bag of suckers, removing the wrapper and popping it into her mouth. "Santana I have a lot of homework so if we could make this quick, I'd be grateful." Charlie called out.

Santana scowled before checking the audience and spotting Beiste sitting with a few of the other teachers. "I've been taking it easy on you, but not this time, Gimpy Smurfette."

Charlie scowled, "It's just Smurfette. The smurfs are the only—"

"Don't care," Santana interrupts before using Charlie's annoyance to launch her attack. The flames that were surrounding her body, erupting as she used her anger to fuel the flames. She immediately takes off, in an explosion of fire and air and barrels her way to Charlie.

Charlie raised a brow at the display of power, before raising her right hand. It still felt slightly foreign to her, but Brittany insisted that the feeling would pass, over time. Santana had requested that she take this seriously, which unfortunately meant that she couldn't allow Santana to get going.

There is no lightning. There are no outward displays of Charlie's magnetic potential, as Santana abilities suddenly evaporate, leaving nothing more than a limp body flying through the air.

It takes the entire student body a second to realize that Santana Lopez is out, as Charlie moves to catch her, instead of letting her body crash into the ground.

Charlie looked up at the crowd, but everyone was just staring at her in shock and a bit of horror on their faces. "I'll take her to the nurses office," she sighed, as she slowly begins to make her way back to the school.

~ O ~

Santana's eyes snap open and she lets out a deep gasp as she struggles into a seated position. Her mind was racing as she couldn't immediately place her surroundings. She whips her head around and spots Charlie typing on her laptop, and it takes her another second to realize that she was in the nurse's office. She tries to replay the last thing she can remember, but all she could really remember was flying towards Charlie and the entire world going dark. "I lost."

Charlie blinks and looks up from her laptop as Santana flops back down onto the examination table and closes her eyes. "You did," Charlie said as she saved her work and closed the laptop. "You've been out for the past hour or so. I stayed, just to make sure that you were alright."

Santana's shoulder slump and listens as Charlie just puts her things away, "Shit."

Charlie stops for a moment and studies Santana, "If your opponent had been anyone else, I'm sure Beiste would have insisted that you rejoin the hero course. And I'm sure that you'll make a really good hero one day."

Santana clenched her fists tightly at Charlie's rather patronizing tone, before she just lets it go. Charlie had won, she could be as patronizing and condescending as she wanted. "That's not—that's not good enough. I don't want to be just a good hero. I wanted to be the best. And the best, go to Summit. I was so fucking sure that I was going to go to Summit. I thought that I was special, but maybe your grandfather is right and I'm not special."

"When did my grandfather say that you weren't special?" Charlie questions sitting back down in her chair. She had been certain that her grandfather was doing all this because he saw some potential in Santana. He'd be blind not to.

"At your house, after Rachel impressed him I asked him what about me and he told me that Summit would probably never take me. I thought I was strong, I mean all my life people told me how special I was, and how I was going to be the greatest hero on the planet. But Rachel—Rachel fucking Berry gets to be special? She gets to be better than me? "

"Summit has three exams. The public only knows of two of them," Charlie says crossing her legs. "The written exam, the physical examination are the ones that everyone knows about. That's why you have so many of these tutoring programs set up to help you ace the written exam. Problem is, Summit doesn't actually care if you can pass the written exam. They teach you all that material through the course. They care about how strong your abilities are, and they care about your personality."

Santana finally turned to look at Charlie, "How do you know all this?"

"Because even though my aunt is a level 5, they didn't accept her. She passed both the written and the physical but failed the personality examination. It's why my aunt Cassandra went to K2. She graduated, and she got in with one society or another, her career imploded when she put a reporter in the hospital. It was a huge scandal, she got kicked off the team. She failed as a hero, and now teaches at NYU. My grandfather was gutted. He had such high hopes for her, maybe that's why she failed," Charlie shrugged her shoulders.

"That doesn't explain how you know about the third exam," Santana insisted.

"I've already been accepted into all the top Academy's Santana. That includes Summit. I passed the written, they waived the physical. There are four of us, Frannie, Brittany, Quinn and myself, only two of us passed the personality test. Quinn and Frannie failed. The only reason that Summit is waiving the personality requirement for Quinn is because they really want me to attend," Charlie explained with a wave of her hand. "You want the truth. You'll probably pass the written, if you don't get any stronger, you may pass the physical. It truly depends on who else is applying during that year, luckily they consider me to be an anomaly so I won't count. But the truth Santana, is that you aren't getting into Summit because you're a bully. K2 might take you but you wouldn't pass K2's physical, which is even harder than Summits. The reason my grandfather probably told you to find a new passion is because he sees my Aunt Cassandra in you."

Santana swallowed, "My dream has always been Summit."

Charlie grabbed her bag, and slung it over her shoulder as she got up. "I'm sorry Santana, as you are now, there is no path to Summit." There really was nothing more to be said. She really disliked being the bad guy. Her grandfather should have been the one to sit Santana down and explain why she wasn't getting into Summit. She turns to leave the nurses office when she feels a hand wrap around her wrist, causing her to stop and look at Santana.

"Please. Help me."

Charlie studied the hand that was wrapped around her wrist and then back at Santana. In all the time that she had known Santana Lopez she had never seen her act vulnerable, she had never heard her ask for anything. This wasn't a demand, it was a genuine plea for help. What type of hero would she be if she didn't help? "Alright. But I'm not my grandfather, I don't know how to explain things to you in a way you'll understand. Can you walk?"

Santana nods, and when Charlie takes off she scrambles off the examination table and follows her outside. Charlie places her bag down on the bleachers and walks to what she assumes will be a safe distance and motions for Santana to follow her. "Do that thing you did earlier. You know where your body turns into flames."

Santana doesn't say anything and just does what Charlie asks. Her body erupts into flames, "Now what?"

"To be considered a proper level 4 Santana, the temperature of your flames needs to exceed 750 Degrees. Right now you're basically as hot as most kitchen ovens." Charlie explains as she places a hand on Santana's shoulder and closes her eyes.

A tingling sensation slowly begins to spread across her body, and she can feel her flames start to grow brighter, till suddenly they disappear and Santana nearly stumbles back, but Charlie's hand tightens around her shoulder. It takes her a moment to realize that instead of her usual bright yellow flames, that her flames had turned blue and were almost colorless. It takes her a second longer to realize that her body suddenly felt lighter. "What are you doing?"

Charlie removes her hand and suddenly, Santana's flame returns to their bright orange color. Charlie shakes her hand and looks at Santana. "That's how hot you need to be to be considered a level 4 Santana. So my suggestion is to before you do your entire body, and quite possibly burn down your house, try to create a blue flame with a finger or something. Once you can do that, find me and we'll have lesson 2." Charlie rolled her shoulder, and began to walk away stopping. "As for wanting to be a better person. Maybe start by apologizing to Rachel, and whoever else you bullied. I'm going home mom is making her famous roast for dinner, and I have to get back before Quinn and my grandfather eat it all."