"So," Rachel began as she took a seat at Quinn's table, with a few of the other members of the Titans. She frowns when she doesn't see a tray, or even any sort of food for Quinn on the table, she was just reading. "Did you forget lunch?"

Quinn smirked, "If I did, are you going to share yours with me?"

"No," Rachel retorts immediately smirking at Quinn's look of disbelief. "You'd complain about all the vegan gluten-free stuff."

"I'm hardly the foodie that Charlie is, but I do agree with her that food should be enjoyed and at the very least it should taste good."

"My food is delicious," Rachel insisted. "You literally ate all my vegan sugar cookies."

"Yes, because they had sugar in them," Quinn smirked at Rachel's outrage. "And I—"

"Okay, stop with the gross flirting," Kitty grimaced, making a face. "You need to focus on the task at hand, not try and sleep with the non-super-hero twin."

Quinn shot Kitty an annoyed look, "If you wanted Charlie for something, why in the world didn't you text her?"

Before Kitty can irritate Quinn further, Tina speaks up, "Because it's something that you can answer, it is after all about Frannie—"

"There are pictures of my mom being pregnant, and there are pictures of my mom coming back with Frannie in her arms. She isn't adopted," Quinn answers the most obvious question.

"Well, that's informative, that's not exactly what we wanted to know, but today in practice Frannie has stated that she's going to test each one of us to see where she needs to put the effort in and we're just wanting to know—"

"Frannie's the weakest out of the 4 of us, you should be fine," Quinn said dismissively.

"See, Santana, Finn and Blaine, all made it seem like she was going to beat us to death."

"Frannie doesn't beat people to death, she throws them in volcanos," Quinn corrects. "You're all teenagers and even though you signed a release I doubt very much that Coach Beiste would allow that to happen, it's not like she's Sue. Also as a note, don't introduce Frannie to Sue, I fear that Sue might get ideas, and I'm literally the only one stopping her more insane ideas. She wants to shoot Bree out of a cannon. I want to shoot Bree out of a cannon, that doesn't mean it's a good idea."

"I mean Bree is kind of awful isn't she?" Tina smiles when Quinn snorts at her statement.

"Yes, but not I want her dead awful," Quinn stated turning to look at a portal that had just opened up, though from the corner of her eye she sees half of the Titans flinch even as Charlie steps out carrying a massive bag in her arms as she takes a seat beside her.

"I don't know what bao is, but I got you two orders of everything. Juicy pork dumplings, some steam BBQ pork buns, pork and shrimp shumai, and basically two of all the dumplings that they have on the menu. I am not a delivery service Quinn."

"You were in LA seeing Linda, and I've felt like dumplings for a while now." Quinn comments, waiting as Charlie finishes emptying the large bag.

Charlie opens one of the boxes and looks at the dumpling before grabbing one and biting into it, glancing at the rest of the Titans and raising a brow, they were staring at her, "Did I get some food on my face?" She said wiping at her chin and mouth with the back of her hand.

"You're alive?" Finn spurts out causing everyone to turn to him.

"Did you tell everyone that I was dead?" Charlie asked, turning to look at Quinn, horrified. It seemed like it was something Quinn would do.

"Don't be stupid, I would have to deal with the Santana of it all, she probably thinks that she knows you better than I know you. And she'd be overly—extra about it."

"Didn't you get eaten by that monster? I'm pretty sure I saw it just eat you."

"No Finn, I didn't get eaten by a monster. A monster put me in his mouth. I blew a hole in its brain, which was disgusting," Charlie responds, shuddering at the memory. The blood and guts had been strangely acidic and she'd ruined most of her clothes. "Wait, you thought I was dead and you're not a wreck? You should be mourning Finn. Dressed head to toe in black, with a veil and everything. I am a very important person in your life."

Finn immediately folded at Charlie's outraged expression and he immediately looks for help from his teammates, but they immediately look away and he knows he's on his own. "Well—" He begins, only for Santana to arrive, and walk straight up to Charlie.

Santana places a hand under Charlie's chin and forces her ex-girlfriend to look at her and she quickly scans her face for a moment before letting go and patting Charlie on the head, "I like your eyes better this way," she informs Charlie, gently stroking at her cheek, and keeping the smirk off her face as Charlie flushes red and tries to pull away from her. "Ooh dumplings," Santana said as she took a seat beside Charlie and reached for a dumpling.

Quinn turned to look at her twin who immediately looked away and she rolled her eyes, "Once again Charlie, I'm pretty sure we don't share food."

"Shut up Quinn," Charlie hisses, Santana could do whatever the fuck she wanted as far as she was concerned. "Besides you only like Rachel because you won't have to share your food with her," she mutters the last part, before Quinn can say anything. "I think the green ones are vegetarian, I don't think they have vegan dumplings, Rachel. Next time."

Rachel smiled at Charlie, "Well at least you thought of me. Can I ask when your relationship book is coming out?"

"Seriously?" Quinn interrupts looking at Rachel. "You do know that they're not dating anymore."

"Well, I just think if you were to read Charlie's relationship book then you'll know when someone is trying to ask you out. Also being good at relationships doesn't mean that everyone one will work out, and look at them, they still clearly love each other."

"I was expecting a grand romantic gesture, not doing it while Charlie was right there!" Quinn insists.

"She's not very good at relationships," Santana whispers to Charlie.

"I know we were so much better at it. All we need to do is look at one another, and we get it."

Quinn turned to look at the two of them, narrowing her eyes, she's about to start freezing things when Blaine arrived with Kurt in tow, "Charlie you're back, which means you can give us a strategy to beat Frannie."

"Beat Frannie?" Charlie echoes.

"They want to know how strong Frannie is compared to us," Quinn clarifies.

"Can she throw them in a volcano or well anything else that is super deadly?"

"I'm pretty sure she's not allowed to do that."

"Good, the volcano is the absolute worst."

"It is."

"As long as she can't throw you into a volcano, Frannie is super weak. You should be fine," Charlie says dismissively.

Before the team can rest and trust those words, Santana frowns. "So Frannie's never beaten you in a fight?"

"Frannie and I haven't fought in years. Frannie wins because she transports us into active volcanoes, she can't do that with you so you should be fine. Plus I'm pretty sure even you could beat me in hand-to-hand combat. Frannie's not sparring with family, she's training you, I'm not saying that it's going to be easy, but if you strategize and don't get caught you'll probably win."

Quinn nodded, "Look even I think you'll be fine. It's Frannie, she's mostly bark."

Rachel narrowed her eyes, "Mostly, being the key word in that sentence. Suggesting that she does bite."

Quinn smiled at Rachel, "Charlie bites. Again, Charlie's absurdly strong, with far more offensive capabilities than Frannie. You all survived that. Frannie can't be any worse than Charlie is."

The table glanced over at Charlie who had grown disinterested in the conversation and was eating a dumpling. Quinn had a point.

~ O ~

"Are you sure that he should be watching this?" Shannon asked Charlie who was carrying her nephew on her shoulders, his hands were tangled in her hair tightly and he seemed content in screeching and pulling at it when he got excited.

Charlie seemed completely unperturbed by "He's a baby, he's not going to remember all the violence and screaming in ten minutes. He also won't understand what's going on, he'll just think they're playing a game," Charlie lets out a laugh.

Shannon shot Charlie a look, she hadn't much time to interact with the teen, and every time she wanted to reach out it seemed as if Charlie was pulled away for some world-ending event. "I know that I was never the one called to save the planet, but I do know what it's like to be a hero so if you ever need someone to talk to, I do understand some of what you're going through."

Charlie spared Beiste a glance, "Fighting is the easiest part of the job."

"It really is," Shannon replied simply, understanding what Charlie was saying. "Are you really aiming for The Utopian's seat?"

Charlie didn't say anything immediately as she watched Frannie giving the team instructions, the seat was never his to begin with. The strongest American and quite frankly the strongest AI in the world had been her grandmother, she just simply wasn't a hero. She wasn't a villain either. "The seat already belongs to me, I already have all the qualifications. Which is why The Utopian and I have already come to an agreement, he'll keep the seat warm for me until I am ready to deal with all that comes with sitting in that seat. I honestly just think that the old man wants to rest for a bit. He's like 300 years old."

Before Shannon can correct Charlie's understanding of how old people were, "Mama!" Mikey screams smacking his aunt on the top of her head.

"Yeah, it's your mama! We're going to watch her be a total badass," Charlie explains to her nephew. And possibly witness a few murders, but she planned to cover Mikey's eyes for the inevitable murders that would be happening soon. She hadn't lied to her former teammates, though it would certainly feel like she had. The team could beat Frannie with the handicap that Frannie had given herself, she didn't doubt that for a second, she just knew they wouldn't at least not today.

~ O ~

Frannie glanced up at the observation deck, she wasn't thrilled that Charlie was currently watching with Michael in her arms. "According to Coach Beiste, you've done this training method with Charlie. With that said, I'm not Charlie and I don't have the same hangups that she does. What does that mean? Charlie goes out of her way not to hurt you, giving you a brief shock so you can continue. My training isn't as kind, it will hurt, and I'm not going to stop giving you the answers like Charlie does when she feels bad for you. It's why it hasn't been carved into your souls yet. Whether you want to be a hero or not, in this world it is important that you are able to protect the people you care about. A monster could show up at any time, and this training will keep you alive."

Rachel's hand immediately shoots up, and when Frannie looks at her she inhales, "You won't be throwing us into active volcanoes will you?"

Frannie raised a brow at the question, before looking back at the observation deck for a brief moment. "I'm not trying to kill you," she answers plainly. "You'll know when I'm trying to kill you." The ease at which Frannie had said those words caused the entire team to shudder. "I'm going to go make sure that Charlie isn't filling my child's head with nonsense, but the moment I step out of my portal it's fair game. Talk amongst yourself, I need to stress the rules to Charlie." With that Frannie opens a portal and steps through it, closing it behind her.

Almost immediately everyone turns to Santana waiting for her instructions. "We've managed to put Charlie on the back foot before and we have to assume that we can do the same thing for Frannie," Santana says immediately. There was a small voice in the back of her head, that was practically screaming at her that Charlie had let them get the better of her. "Frannie is a Level 5, and while it's obvious she doesn't have Quinn or Charlie's offensive capabilities, we can't pretend that she isn't just as dangerous. Overwhelming force, force Frannie to defend. And when she makes a mistake, and she will—that's when we capitalize. Tina, find high ground, I think the simulation is going to be urban warfare today. She definitely won't be able to find you as easily as Charlie does," Santana said quite pleased with herself. Tina was their ace. As long as they used Tina they would win. She was sure of it.

~ O ~

"What do you think they decided on?" Frannie said a rare smile on her face as she tickled his tummy and he laughed.

Shannon sighed and looked at the team for a moment, "I mean the smart move would be to take you out as quickly as possible. It's how they attempted to take Charlie out a few times. I mean it didn't work, but as you've made abundantly clear you're not Charlie."

"I am standing right here," Charlie muttered.

Frannie didn't spare her sister a glance, frowning ever so slightly, "I expect something a tad more devious from Santana. Something simple for the team to follow. Her first mistake is underestimating me."

"They aren't underestimating you, they're sufficiently terrified of you. They have a general understanding of what your abilities are and what you're capable of. I mean in most circumstances, their plan would work. You can't penalize them because it won't work on us," Charlie points out.

Frannnie sighed, "I'm beginning to wonder if I should leave Michael in your care. I'm not sure if being as dull as you is something that he can catch. Plans work until they don't. So how is Santana going to handle that, how is the team going to handle it. I'm undoing the bad habits you taught them."

"I didn't do anything of the sort!"

"Overwhelming force isn't a strategy Charlie, you taught them that. The problem is, they do not have a fraction of our stamina. You inadvertently taught them to fight like you, which in theory works if you see the world the way you do. But Santana doesn't have near the intuition you do and she doesn't have the experience to compensate. Especially with a team that still has a bit of trouble controlling their powers. And Regina—you know as well as I do that she's a liability. Sure there are a few disabled heroes, but they do street level stuff, and Regina's far too powerful for that. You shouldn't have encouraged her."

"Frannie," Coach Beach admonished, looking over at Charlie carefully. Regina was a liability. The other teams would target her.

"I thought her power was cool," Charlie said with a shrug. "She's strong, I mean that's why I picked the three freshmen, they have cool powers. Not every hero is going to work at a firm, some just protect their hometown's when things go wrong. Most of the more dangerous stuff happens in highly populated areas. Regina is determined to overcome some of her limitations, which means she's creative. Powerful and creative is a pain in the ass to fight. But I see your point on everything else. Mikey and I will be cheering you on."

"Good," Frannie said, handing her son back, and opening a portal, "This is going to be fun."

"For you," Charlie mumbled under her breath as Frannie walked through the portal, even as she turned to the field to see hundreds of portals of all shapes and sizes suddenly appear around the Titans. "Your mom's about to murder a bunch of teenagers," Charlie informed her nephew who let out a loud squeal and giggle and Charlie shuddered. The last thing they needed was a mini version of Frannie. She'd need to redouble her efforts to turn her nephew into the cool little dude she knew he'd grow up to be.

~ O ~

The one thing that Rachel learned while she was a minute and a half into what she could only describe as Lovecraftian horror on acid, was that the twins couldn't be trusted. She should have known something was up when Charlie and Quinn had agreed that Frannie was weak, they were either lying or they as a group hadn't done n early enough diligence to actually ask what the twins considered as weak, because if Frannie was weak then it begged the question, what the twins thought of their powers. Before she can even look to Santana for instructions, a body is thrown out of one of the portals followed by the pieces of Tina's gun. There would be no putting it back together. She immediately takes a few steps back, as Frannie steps out of a portal.

"So, shall we begin?" Frannie asks with a predatory smile on her face.

Santana took one look at all the portals, including the one that had a giant tentacle like thing shooting out of it, and at Tina who was struggling to get up and then at Frannie, "Run," her voice barely above a whisper. When she realizes that everyone is glued to their spots. "Run! Fucking run!" Santana yells.

All hell literally breaks loose as one of the tentacles grabs Kitty who screams, and gets dragged towards whatever that thing was, and just as she's about to turn and flee she feels something crawling up her leg, and slowly glances down at her leg and screams, inadvertently using her power and sending members of her team flying. It wasn't just one tiny spider, no there were what appeared to be hundreds of massive hairy spiders crawling up her leg. "Get it off, get it off!" She screams.

There is absolute chaos amongst the ranks of the Titans, as most simply turn tail and run trying to get away from the shit show that was currently unfolding in front of them and even though she knows she needs to regain control and make a new plan, most of her teammates are busy attempting to fight off the coming apocalypse while Frannie looked on, pleased with herself. She does the first thing she thinks of which is to throw a fireball at Frannie who doesn't even spare a glance in her direction as a portal opens up and suddenly her fireballs are another weapon that is being used against the team. If they survived this hell on Earth she was going to have words with Charlie. Strong words. Words that would be punctuated with fireballs to the face.

~ O ~

Beiste looked over at Charlie, wondering where she had gotten a tub of popcorn which she was sharing with her nephew, who was letting crumbs and bits of wet popcorn fall onto her head. "Seriously, shouldn't you be concerned?"

"They're fine. I mean apart from the spiders and the tentacles, this is rather tame by Frannie's standards. When she starts with the lava is when you know you've got an actual problem." Charlie replied, taking a handful of popcorn and then reaching up so that Mikey could have a fistful of popcorn. "Do you want your juice?" Charlie questions her nephew.

"Charlie—"

"Ya!" Mikey said, hitting Charlie on the top of the head.

Charlie picks up a sippy bottle and holds it up for him, letting him take it, and start sipping.

"They're going to be traumatized, that's not fine."

Charlie glanced over at Beiste, "This is like, minor trauma things, they'll be fine. I've been there and if they aren't fine, I know a great therapist."

~ O ~

Normally the Titan's afternoon practice ended at the same time as the Cheerios, which normally gave Quinn the excuse to take Rachel home, instead of letting her carpool with Santana, but after fifteen minutes of waiting she had decided to see what was taking the team so long. With a sigh she texts her twin only for a portal to open in front of her immediately. She blinks and steps through it only to find herself in the observation deck of one of the many training rooms. "What the—" Quinn begins looking at the utter carnage that was the Titans.

Kitty was openly sobbing curled up in the fetal position. Finn was currently sitting in a seat staring off into space without eyebrows. Artie was mumbling in a corner with Tina who looked like she had gone 15 rounds in a boxing gym. Rachel was currently shivering in a fetal position in the corner but it's the scream of delight that causes Quinn to look up to see her nephew on Charlie's shoulders, banging on her head and pulling on her hair. "Hell portals?" Quinn asked her twin, her tone flat.

"Yep," Charlie said as she gently picked Mikey from her shoulders and tickled his tummy, "Whose mommy opened the gates of hell, yours did. Oh yes she did," she said as Mikey giggled.

"You said she was weak!"

Quinn flinched at Rachel's tone and turned to look at her, immediately taking a few steps back and holding her hands up in front of her. There was a crazed look in Rachel's eye that made her uncomfortable, "I said that Frannie is the weakest out of the 4 of us, I never actually said that Frannie is weak."

"Don't try and lawyer your way out of this! You're not even in law school yet!" Rachel snaps at Quinn. "Charlie already used that argument, and if that's what you consider weak then what do you consider the rest of us?"

Quinn looked over to her twin for a bit of help, "Rachel, I compared Frannie to the four of us, knowing how obviously powerful Charlie is, why would you immediately think that made her weak? Frannie's still a Level 5, which you knew. You didn't ask us how to beat her, or what to expect, you asked if she was weak. The answer to that for nearly everyone on the planet will be yes."

"Everyone on the planet for me," Charlie throws in rather unhelpfully.

"Then you should have warned us!"

"I mean it's Frannie, I'm pretty sure I have told you that Frannie is a—"

"Quinn, not in front of Mikey!" Charlie interrupts. "He loves his mommy, don't you. You find her torturing teenagers funny! Cause you're a mini version of her aren't you?"

"You know what I think of my sisters," Quinn corrects herself.

Rachel took a deep breath, before simply turning around on her heel and storming out of the room.

"I don't think she wants to have S-E-X with you anymore," Charlie adds, smirking when Quinn turns to glare at her. "It's your turn to watch Mikey for a moment, Santana, Blaine, Sam, Regina and Emma are still down there, and I'm hungry," Charlie said holding up Mikey.

Quinn shoots Charlie an annoyed look, but doesn't hesitate to take Mike from her. "I need to make sure that Rachel doesn't hate me so end it, so I can go find her. What exactly did Frannie—"

"Rachel got the spiders."

Quinn blinked once then again, before her shoulders slump, "I don't think she wants to have sex with me anymore."

"You really should spell the word out, there's a baby in your arms and Frannie will murder you if he starts saying the word. I mean parenting is super easy Quinn, I should write a book," Charlie says speaking up as she opens a portal.

Quinn waits until Charlie exits before looking at Mikey, "Your aunt is an idiot. You should never listen to anything she has to say. I know she has my face and it's confusing, but you'll know that Charlie is an idiot."

~ O ~

Santana was not having a good day. It wasn't the worst day ever, but she was not having a good day. Half her team was gone, they'd been removed from play after Frannie had 'killed them.' She had inadvertently taken out Finn, and she was sure that he no longer had any eyebrows. Rachel had been removed. Artie, Tina, Jason and Kitty had all been removed relatively quickly. And they still hadn't been able to land a single blow on Frannie, who just looked unimpressed and bored. It was infuriating.

"Regina says she's not sure how much longer we can keep this up, we've been playing defense the entire time and we're barely managing to do that, also I'm pretty sure Blaine's nose is broken, so I'm not sure how much more help he's going to be," Emma whispered to Santana keeping an eye on Regina's hands.

"I'm fine," Blaine said, gritting his teeth as Sam reset the nose, his eyes nearly swollen shut. "We've run through our entire playbook Santana, and it didn't do anything—what now?"

Every single thing that they had run hadn't done anything and she was exhausted, and she truly regretted deciding that she was going to steal half of Charlie's dumplings at lunch. "I don't know." She feels like crying, but at this moment her face hurts too much to cry. The stress was eating at her, Frannie wasn't Charlie, there would be no mercy here. There wouldn't even be a good job, or a discussion about what she could do better, or how they could have won. "I don't fucking know."

"I mean I know how you can beat Frannie, but I'm only here to tell you to hurry up because I'm hungry and I have homework," Charlie said as she hovered above them and picked popcorn from her hair.

Santana immediately threw a fireball at Charlie's face only for it to explode before it hit her, "You said we could beat her."

"I did say you could beat her, I didn't say that day would be today," Charlie retorts easily, a slight frown on her face. There was something sticky in her hair. "I'm hungry, so I'm going to do something that will tick Frannie off, but I think it needs to be said. This was what I was talking about at regionals, don't think what would Charlie do? Because none of you are as powerful as me and none of you have the control I have. Look at the tools that you have, and make them work to your advantage. I mean it's really not that hard, what can you do? Will Frannie have a defense for it? If the answer is I don't know, then find out. If the answer is yes, then move along." Charlie hummed and glanced towards the wall. "So I think that whenever I open portals near Frannie she can feel it, so she knows you're hiding here—so you should probably look for somewhere else to hide."

Before Santana can even begin to process what Charlie has said, she disappears into her portal, just as another portal opens up and she gets hit with a geyser of water, which sends her flying across the room and slamming into the opposite wall, the water doesn't let up. It's salty and it tears at her skin, making it difficult to breathe. She can hear the rest of her team screaming, but she can't do anything to help as suddenly she sinks into a portal and gets thrown into the observation room. Where she's left looking up at Quinn who is holding a baby in her arms.

"You look like shit," Quinn informs her, looking down at her and nudging her with her foot.

Santana raised her hand, and flicked Quinn off, before closing her eyes and simply giving up.