For years, Summit had been the premier university for training heroes. Their hero department was one to be envious of, and countries from all over the world were willing to pay whatever it took to have their best AI's accepted into the hero department, or any of their departments. World class facilities, but really what was the envy of the world was the alumni. Summit's alumni and their internship program was what set it apart from the other universities. They had inroads into some of the best hero firms.

Despite all of this, Holly Holiday, the Dean of Summit, was currently tapping her foot impatiently as she glanced at her watch. They weren't a school that needed to convince the best students to come to their school, but when Artemis July, asked for a favor, you did whatever she asked. The woman had earned that right, and Lawrence had been the one to put Summit on the map. Charlotte Fabray was the hottest prospect in the hero community right now, and she needed to make sure that she convinced Charlie to either attend Summit or go pro. It wouldn't do if Charlotte attended another institution. It was why she had agreed to open up Summit's grounds to McKinley Titans, and have them train with the best staff in the world.

Before Holly can check her watch once again, a massive portal opens up on Summit's quad. Frannie Fabray's gifts never ceased to amaze her, no one had the range or the ability to open up portals to places that Frannie did. She had never once worked as a hero, despite having a license of her own. It's only a second later that the Titans start to walk out the portal. "Welcome McKinley, to Summit."

There was awe on the faces of the students who made it to the otherside of the portal, as they take a look at the world-class facilities.

"They have a city in the back? I thought that this was its own private island?" Finn questioned.

"Summit is on an artificially created island, and we do keep expanding. We are completely sufficient here, and there is a city about twenty minutes away. But what you're looking at over there is our Urban grounds, it's meant to emulate fighting in an urban center. We've got several different grounds that are meant to stimulate hero work in different environments." Holly glances upward when she spots Charlie, she was one of the last people to exit the portal with Shannon. She wants to press the teenager for a decision but she suspected that Charlie still had no idea what the overall plan was.

Before she can say anything else a hand shot up causing Holly to shift her gaze to the eager student up front, "Yes Rachel?"

Rachel paused, she hadn't thought that anyone would know her name, but there was a kindness in Holly's eyes, and she didn't question why such an important person knew her name. "We at McKinley are very grateful for this opportunity, but using world class facilities without the proper instruction won't be as beneficial to the team."

"Are you still upset that we're not at Fort Salem?" Santana groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. She couldn't believe that Rachel was attempting to make this about her, but she had noticed that something seemed to be off with the team. She had walked into a locker room with Charlie and Blaine, which had and the locker room had gone silent. Charlie obviously hadn't noticed, or simply didn't care but there was a shift in the morale of the team, and she wasn't sure if it was a positive or negative one just yet. Blaine seemed closer to the team than she was, so she would ask him what was going on when they took a break at lunch.

Rachel frowned and turned to Santana, "Having excellent equipment doesn't mean that we'll have an effective way of—"

Holly raised her hand, stopping the argument before it could really begin. It was clear that there was some tension on the team. "We've got two days, and since there are eleven of you for the hero department, we will be splitting you into groups of two and three after we do a few exercises in the disaster zone."

"Eleven of us? There are twelve—" Blaine pauses and looks over at Charlie who doesn't meet his look.

"Some of the professor's have asked for Charlie's assistance in training their students. Word got out that you did some work with Frannie's class, and the people that decided to continue in the program have gone through rapid growth." It had caused minor shockwaves through the community when a third of USC's sophomore year had left the hero department after taking Frannie Fabray's notoriously impossible exams. "As for the support team, you will be escorted to our support department where not only will you attend a few seminars on theory, and design. After lunch, you will take a short safety lecture before well—that's a surprise."

The chatter that broke out between the teens was immediate. Shannon sighed, she still felt justified for her anger, but this was an opportunity that came along once in a blue moon. No one could deny that Summit's staff was world class. "Quiet down guys," Shannon barks out and nods at Holly so she could continue."

"I have the teams you're going to be in. Team A: Santana Lopez, Sam Evans, Artie Abrams. Team B: Finn Hudson, Blaine Anderson, Kitty Wilde. Team C: Jake Puckerman, Matt Rutherford, Ryder Lynn. Which leaves Team D: Tina Cohen-Chang and Rachel Berry. When Charlie returns she will be joining Team D for the afternoon activities."

Santana's brow furrowed slightly. It was an odd team up, but this training camp was to help them get ready for nationals, she was going to soak up as much information as she could and hopefully impress some recruiters while she was at it.

~ O ~

"Cassandra?"

Cassandra rolled her eyes at her older sister's, "I was in Ohio, to see Shelby and since you wouldn't stop texting me about your problems I decided to stop by and tell you to stop texting me. We both know that I don't respond to most of your texts and I'm certainly not going to read that novel you sent me either."

Judy still had a shocked expression on her face, she had just vented to Cassandra because she was currently the only one who could possibly understand where she was coming from. She turns and looks back into the house, she wasn't too sure where her parents were but given the relationship between Cassandra and her mother, it was probably best if they didn't stay at the house. "Do you want to go for a drink?" Cassandra arched a brow at the request, but before she could respond Judy mistakes her reaction. "I'll buy."

"Free booze does sound nice, but it's just 10 am. Careful Judy, someone might think that I'm turning you into an alcoholic." At Judy's surprised look Cassandra shrugs, "You can buy coffee."

"Since when do you turn down free drinks?" Judy asked as she took a few steps back so she could grab her purse and a coat.

Cassandra narrowed her eyes slightly, "We're here to discuss your problems. No one said that I had to share. You can also buy me breakfast."

Judy rolled her eyes and motioned towards her car, "I'm at my wits end with Charlie."

Cassandra stopped following Judy, "Please tell me I didn't come all the way here to listen to you bitch about your crappy kids."

"You didn't need to actually come here, if you picked up your phone you could have put it on mute like you normally do and let me figure it out on my own. You chose to come here, and since you're here I'll take you out for breakfast and maybe you can offer some insight into why my daughter hates me."

Cassandra let out a loud groan, it was going to be one of those mornings. "This breakfast had better be fantastic."

~ O ~

'Santana, on your—'

"I see it," Santana shouted into her microphone as she twisted her body and slammed into Sam, knocking him off balance and slamming the two of them to the ground. She grimaces as her body bounces off the ground, her shoulder taking most of the impact. She can't quite stop the torque as her body twists and bounces again, this time her hip takes the brunt of her weight. She finally comes to a hard stop as her lower screams in agony. "Fuck," she cries out in absolute agony.

Sam groans as he pushes himself up, and looks at Santana confusion written all over his face. "Why did you—"

Santana glares at Sam, who immediately closes his mouth as her body erupts into flames and she forces herself to a seated position. "Are you fucking kidding me?" Santana points to the downed powerline with the live lines snapping around, if she had been a second later Sam could have gotten seriously injured. "I just saved your ass because you weren't paying attention. What the fuck is going on here, I know Charlie said that this would be difficult but you guys aren't normally this shitty." Sam imploding wasn't anything new, but he had made some improvement. But Blaine had needed to rescue Finn. She had needed to save Kitty and Ryder on two separate occasions. Both she and Blaine had been running ragged trying to support a team that had seemingly lost its mind.

"I—"

Santana narrowed her eyes, she had known that something was off with the fucking team but she had tried to ignore it. That had obviously been a terrible mistake, which she planned on rectifying, as she gets despite her joints protesting as she moves. Sam seems paralyzed in fear and she manages to grab him by his collar and hoist him up. "Speak now, or I will roast you from the inside out. Why is everyone acting like they have a death wish out there?"

"We're trying to implement some of the advice that we saw from an analyst!" Sam shouts when Santana brings a rather hot flame towards his face.

The flame goes out as Santana drops Sam, and stares at him slightly slack jawed. "What?" Of all the things she could have imagined, that was not what she had expected Sam to say, because it was beyond idiotic.

"The whole team watched some videos—they were doing an analysis on us and we thought it'd be a good idea to try and follow their advice."

Santana closed her eyes, and looked up at the sky for a moment before before bringing her hand to her ear, "Did you—"

'I heard. What's the next step, we should at least attempt to finish.'

Santana gritted her teeth, briefly wondering what Charlie would do before coming to the conclusion that trying to emulate Charlie was silly. Charlie wouldn't have gotten herself into this situation to begin with and assuming she did, she was powerful enough and dumb enough to do something amazing and walk away. She looks back at the natural disaster which they were supposed to help with, a landslide. The level of difficulty and the risk for injury was high especially if the rest of the team was being dumb. As bad as she knew it was going to look, she needed to be the one to make the call before someone got injured or legit died, if this was how Summit trained then no wonder they were the best heroes on the planet. "We need to retreat before someone gets hurt, Blaine, hopefully they'll let us try again after I've finished ripping them a new one."

'Are you sure—'

"Sam could have gotten killed, and there is no coming back from that. If we can't trust the team to react in a predictable manner, then someone will get hurt, and at the very least here someone could die." Santana sighed, before switching to a more general communication, and grimaced as she heard uncontrolled chatter. "Enough! We're pulling back, do not make me or Blaine come and find you. Everyone at the meeting point." Santana switches her communications off and looks at Sam. "What are you waiting for?" She snaps at him as he immediately scrambles and begins to pull back. Well there went any chance of impressing Summit's recruiters.

~ O ~

"Well? Am I wildly off base here?" Judy asked after she had finished relaying the entire story to Cassandra who was working on her third plate of pancakes. It was enough to give Judy pause, she was used to Cassandra drinking her calories, that seeing her actually eat was slightly jarring.

Cassandra picks up her cup of coffee and drains it before lifting it to get the waitress's attention. "I mean apart from your kid hating you what are you actually trying to accomplish? The kid is nearly eighteen and she's the hottest prospect in America at this moment. Whether she goes to Summit or she joins a firm, she's going to be independent. She's going to be a hero."

"I'm trying to keep her safe." Judy inhaled, and then closed her eyes before exhaling.

"If you wanted to keep her safe, you wouldn't have given our mother access to her during her formative years. She might still want to be a hero, but she would have none of the destructive bullshit that mother dearest peddled as wisdom." Cassandra pointed out bluntly. She was pretty sure that she had warned Judy every single time she was pregnant to avoid letting their mother have such influence on the kids. She hadn't listened. "I can talk to her, she won't listen but I can make an effort to talk to her. She used to be my biggest fan once upon a time."

"Would you?" Judy's eyes widened.

Cassandra shrugged her shoulders, "I can't promise anything, and you're her mother, you really need to have a conversation with her, about how she's depending on Brittany far too much. She got lucky at sectionals and if Brittany hadn't intervened when she had—that's the angle you need to attack it. I doubt Brittany enjoys saving her ass, and having her life interrupted because Charlie's done something stupid. I mean perish the thought that me and mom agree on it, but punishing her was the wrong move. Talk to her, and if that doesn't work, tell Brittany to only heal her in case of life-or-death."

"Brittany has been complaining about the rate at which Charlie is getting injured, and she did want to put some rules in place," Judy muttered.

"Is this what parenting is? I mean this is way easier than how you made it sound," Cassandra offered as she poured more maple syrup onto her already soggy pancakes. "You should probably let her know that you want her to practice under your watchful eye for now, it's a compromise."

Judy rolled her eyes, it was so easy to give advice when you didn't have to deal with the fallout of that advice, "Can you talk to her tonight? She's at Summit now, they should be back this evening, assuming she doesn't find someone to crash with. She has been spending quite a bit of time with Santana."

"And you approve of this?" Cassandra asks, frowning slightly.

"I like Santana! I think she's perfect in helping ground Charlie, and Quinn for that matter. I'm not exactly thrilled that they're intimate with one another, but I think I prefer Charlie being with Santana then the revolving door of women that Charlie parades around, she takes after you and Russell!"

Cassandra rolled her eyes, "Oh, this is just you being a prude again. No wonder, your marriage failed."

"I am not—" Judy glared at Cassandra who smirked at her. "I just don't want to think of my kids being sexually active. That doesn't make me a prude."

"What makes you a prude, is that you used to be fun, until you met Russell of all people and I still don't get it. Russell's always been an ass. I mean if he was attractive and had a decent-sized dick and knew what to do with it, I'd at least understand."

"Cassie."

"Tell me I'm wrong."

"We're not here to talk about my life choices, we're here to complain about my children," Judy huffed, throwing Cassandra's words back at her.

~ O ~

Charlie bit into her sandwich and chewed slowly savoring each bite as she watched Santana who was on a warpath as she chewed out the team. She had managed to take out both the freshman and the sophomore class in record time. The sophomore class was better, from their reaction time to the way they used their abilities. She had been forced to adjust. Still, her attention floats back to Santana. She had caught just enough of the disaster zone simulation to know that Santana had made the right decision in ending the simulation.

She had suspected that the team would struggle a bit, this was like nothing that they had ever done before. There wasn't a highschool that had access to the space and the funding to run complete real world simulations, where every mistake that you made was unforgiving. But she had needed to save Rachel from being crushed by a steel beam that had slipped from a truck that had been overturned on the overpass overhead. Struggling was one thing, forgetting basic safety rules was beyond suicidal. It was part of the reason why the death rate and serious injury in rookie heroes was so high.

Pushing the rest of her sandwich into her mouth Charlie grabs her bottle of water before hopping off the observation deck and landing hard on the ground behind the rest of the team, and takes a sip of her water as the team turns to look at her. "Santana seems to have a handle on this, so just ignore me," Charlie informs the team and begins to float as she sips on her water and pulls out her phone and begins to check her messages.

Santana flicked a very small fireball at Charlie, rolling her eyes when Charlie didn't even look at it before it got zapped by a very small arc of electricity. "I don't know why you're all looking at her, she's said it a million times her ticket to Summit has already. We don't and instead of focusing on what you know is the right thing, you guys apparently went to go trust a stranger on the internet. Someone who doesn't know you, who hasn't seen how much work you've put into this. I'm pretty sure we made a horrible impression on the Summit recruits, and if you think this won't get back to other schools?"

"She's right," Blaine said, speaking up and clearing his throat when the attention was on him. "If they were watching, and if any of us were on any short lists we aren't there anymore. This wasn't a villain fight, saving people is like our number one priority and if you're getting injured or hurt you're just another body for one of us to risk our lives saving. In other words you're nothing more than dead weight, and chances are if you mess up you'll end up causing more harm than good. Santana or I could have gotten injured coming to save you."

"Whose idiotic idea was this? We all had to sit through the lecture about social media, we all had to sit through the lecture about the media. So, who thought that they knew better than Coach Beiste, Charlie's grandparents and our captain?" There was silence from the team and Santana immediately flared up, forcing a few of them to scramble back to avoid getting burnt. "Well?"

Rachel swallowed and slowly stood up, "It's just that—"

"Are you fucking kidding me? Is this about your pathological need to be the center of attention? First Quinn and now this? What did you hope that this would accomplish?" Santana took a step towards Rachel only to be stopped by a bolt of lightning hitting the ground in front of her, causing her to turn to Charlie. "You aren't actually going to protect her this time are you?"

"I wanted to hear her answer your questions, and we need Rachel for nationals. We don't have time to replace her on the team," Charlie replies as she finally stops floating and lands on her feet in front of the team.

"You've been showing favoritism," Rachel pointed out.

"Directed at you," Santana said, gritting her teeth when Charlie glanced at her.

"You go off and Santana and Blaine get special one on one attention from you, and of course—"

"Rachel, you come to my house every weekend." Charlie interrupts flatly. "You're my friend. If you wanted to know what we're doing when we go to Blaine's house? We watch tape, and we go over strategy for the team. I mean I tried to get them to the train with me but they give up after light cardio. We're all working hard to make sure to highlight your skills. I'm your captain, if you had any concerns you do realize you could have talked to me about your concerns. Preferably, before you did something utterly idiotic like getting unvetted advice from an armchair quarterback and deciding to run with it."

There was an icy coolness to Charlie's tone and Rachel's mouth clamps shut and she immediately sits, looking down.

"If you want to take a leadership role on the team you should have let me know Rachel, you didn't need to go behind my back," Charlie smiles. "Okay, time to learn a very painful lesson, because I don't have the time or inclination to be the kind and understanding captain that you've all come to respect. There is still two hours till we're supposed to break for lunch. During those two hours I'm going to up the difficulty of the urban earthquake simulation. You don't need to rescue people, you just need to survive. You'll have a much easier time doing so if you drop whatever nonsense you picked up."

Santana narrowed her eyes, whenever Charlie came up with an idea for a punishment even if it didn't sound bad in theory, Charlie somehow managed to turn it into a hellscape. "Charlie—"

"Don't worry Santana, this is going to be completely winnable for them as they do what they're supposed to do. Work together, support each other and remember their training. I'm not going to pick the me equivalent and tell them to have fun. I just faced them, no one is that strong. But a team of three should be beatable for a team of nine."

"Nine?" Blaine questions.

"You and Santana didn't forget your basic training, and I'd rather they not lean on you like a crutch. They did this, they get the punishment. You two will be with me, well, not exactly with me. You'll be joining both the senior and junior team in their quest to avenge their juniors. I don't have to tell you not to blow this opportunity."

"We won't," Blaine said looking over at Santana.

Santana glanced over at the team, "Will it be beatable by your standards or by theirs?"

Charlie flicked her eyes over to the team, "They need to grow and learn, but you don't start by climbing by trying to scale Everest." Charlie turns back to Santana. "I can promise a baby mountain."

"Aim for a hill," Santana negotiated. "A baby hill."

Charlie is quiet for a moment as she thinks before nodding, "Alright, I can do that. I'll go talk to Beiste and Holly, who are probably watching. So think of this as a second chance to impress."

Santana waits until Charlie's out of earshot and turns to the team, "You might think that's insulting, but to Charlie a mountain, even a baby mountain, could be Everest." They really had no idea how broken Charlie's sense of moderation was.

~ O ~

"Is she—always like this?"

Beiste turned to where she was observing the team's conversation on a rather large screen. There were several recruiters writing notes on everything that they were witnessing, and while she hoped that it was all good, that performance had been amateur hour. "Who do you mean?"

"Charlie, has she always been so—" Holly paused, searching for an inoffensive word to describe the Titan's captain.

Beiste turned her attention back to her captain who seemed lost as she led Blaine and Santana back to the separate zone that she had left without permission. "I know it seems like she's being a bit much, but Charlie isn't cruel. Even when she is playing a game of survival, she knocks them on their ass and after practice she praises good instincts and talks to them about bad choices. Sure she beats it into them, but the growth in the team has grown."

Holly sighed and glanced over at Beiste, it was clear she was attempting to talk up her team. "You have a very lopsided team. There are definitely some diamonds in the rough. Charlie and perhaps Santana have the raw long distance firepower that you need, but Charlie won't be allowed to compete next year. All the top schools have complained about the massive power imbalance. Charlie isn't some diamond in the rough, she's a ringer. There was nothing in the rulebook that prevented her from competing this year, because she's the only level 5 who's ever competed. Charlotte Flair wasn't a level 5 back in high school that came once she entered her prime. It's the same for some of the other Level 5's, but Charlie is the only teenager who is competing who has a provisional hero license. Sure the government just handed it to her, but they didn't give one to Quinn and they certainly didn't give one to Frannie, but that had more to do with Frannie's enjoyment of messing with the government."

"Charlie's only doing this because she wants to test herself against Charlotte Flair." Beiste bit her lip. "Who do you think is going to win?"

"Charlotte Flair," Holly responded without hesitation. "You need to keep a better eye on her, she's not in a good headspace."

"She might not be in the right headspace, but she's not alone," Beiste says Charlie and Santana begin to bicker and Blaine looks ready to separate them. "I want McKinley to be one of the schools that you send recruiters too. I know I can build a team around Santana and Blaine, but—"

"Recruiting is something that you need to look into, but if you can make it to nationals without Charlie, then you won't have to worry," Holly said turning her attention back to Charlie, the fight with Charlotte was going to tell the world what type of hero Charlie was going to be, and the world was interested. But while everyone else was focused on how powerful Charlie was, Charlie was still just 17, she needed to focus on Charlie's emotional maturity and growth. Sure there was not much that Summit could teach Charlie, she was in a class of her own, but Summit would give Charlie a chance to get that emotional maturity that only came with age and time. And it would also give her experience.