Totally updating when I said I would...PROGRESS! YAY! Good evening gentle readers. Here we go again.

The song lyric is of course from Gotye's fabulous song "Somebody that I used to know". Go and listen to this song. It's gooooood.

Misfit Toy Hero Squad

Chapter 67 - "You Treat Me Like Your Father And That Feels Rough"

Parenthood is a scary thing.

From the moment you find out that either you or your respective partner or surrogate or petri dish are incubating that little bundle of cells, you are in full, red-alert terror mode.

What if you, the surrogate or petri dish do something small and insignificant that completely affects the bundle of cells that you are desperately trying to cultivate into a full grown human being? What if you accidentally sip some caffeine, or inhale some little known but super common chemical that will totally derail all the hard work you put into making the tiny thing?

And then, when you do get the tiny thing born, it needs to actually stay alive. Feeding, sleeping, pooping, cleaning, flossing. All of these things are instrumental and you haven't even dipped your tiny baby toe into the deep end yet.

Because even the most idiotic of people can create a live, birth a life and let that life thrive physically.

But getting a person to be well-adjusted and normal...that's difficult. Only 2.5% of the Earth's current population is actually well-adjusted and normal. 80% of the Earth's population (i.e., probably you reading this right now), are just trying not to snap.

And then we have the rest of the 17.5%.

They're fucked.

And quite a bit of the 17.5% were born out of Petri dish.

In Germany.

And they didn't stand a chance. Since their "father" was stuck in a choir room in Lima, Ohio at the time.

"See the way I see it, is that people who abandon their family shouldn't-"

Electro-boy's sneering words towards Schue were cut off as a viciously violent red laser beam shot at his head, grazing the side of his head and causing him to scream out in pain. Rachel blinked and the beam subsided but her heated, angry glare remained.

"I don't want to hurt anyone," Rachel said resolutely.

"Like you could," ridiculously muscle girl scoffed.

Rachel snapped her fingers and the water pipes above their attacker's heads burst, water raining down on them in a surprisingly powerful downfall.

Power suck girl laughed and said, "This is what the original powers are? A light drizzle?"

Rachel wrinkled her nose slightly and arched one eyebrow as the water she held at her command quickly heated, reaching boiling in just a few seconds. The three enemies shrieked in pain as they fled away from the insanely hot water that was pouring down on them.

"I don't want to hurt anyone," Rachel repeated. "But I will not hesitate in doing what needs to be done."

"She really doesn't, I've seen her sing Run Joey Run," Will nodded. "You better bring back better reinforcements!"

Rachel swatted Will in the gut and glared at him. "We don't WANT them to send reinforcements, Mr. Schuester!"

"Eh...we'll manage somehow."

"Delivery!" Rudy called out as the tell-tale blast of wind announced their arrival in the white space.

"Artie?" Puck asked incredulously, his face a complete mask of shock and awe. For right in front of his face, his shoulder gripped in Rudy's tight grasp, was Artie motherfucking Abrams. WALKING. STANDING. "Are you future Artie?"

"Uhm...no?" Artie wondered. He looked around for Rachel or Brittany, keen for them to tell him what the hell was going on. "Where's Rachel?"

"Jesus fucking Cheese on Cracker fucking toast, I FORGOT Rachel!" Santana shrieked. She pointed at Puck and said, "You guys are like reincarnated soul mates and you forgot her! YOU SUCK!"

"Easy Mamacita," Rudy smirked. "You all forgot her."

"RUDOLPHO!" Adelaide hissed. "X-nay on the Amacita-may. You're going to spoil everything!"

"Yeah, RUDOLPHO!" Puck smirked at the boy. "Stop spoiling shit."

"Leave him alone!" Santana smacked Puck upside his head. She looked to Artie curiously and pursed her lips. "Why do I feel so protective over Rudolpho?"

"I think Brittany or Rachel could tell us," Blaine figured. "Cause when the kidlets start talking we learn all about the future we didn't want to know about."

"Stop calling us kids, we're YOUR age," Rudy huffed.

"Kid, you have two fireballs over there, one of which is HALF Rachel Berry, totally ready to fry your ass," Blaine scoffed. "Don't piss me off too. Now come on, we've got people to whoosh."

"How's your energy?" Schue wondered as they walked quickly down the corridors of the enemy's vast complex.

"Fine," Rachel replied shortly.

"The boiling was pretty fast and that water busted through steel," Schue reminded her. "Even Santana struggles with busting it through steel, Rachel."

"I'm FINE," Rachel insisted. "I just want to get to the super powered freak that is responsible for my friends forgetting me, and I want to kick their behinds through into motherfickling yesterday."

"Nice fake swear," Schue nodded slightly in feigned appreciation. Rachel glared at him with suddenly red eyes and he held up his hands. He ground out in a monotone, bored rant, "Don't let your bastard child fricassee me. It won't do any good and will only waste your already limited energy. Heads up, I think that kid can defy gravity. Literally. Please don't sing."

The teenager in question was advancing on them from the opposite end of the hall, his arms raised to shoulder level at either side.

"He's very stiff, he's worse than Finn, and I didn't think that was possible," Rachel muttered.

The boy clenched his fists and chunks of concrete from the floor broke off in perfect discs, they hovered in front of him before zooming towards Rachel and Schuester. Rachel bent her body at an unnatural angle, liquifying her ribs for a split second. The concrete zoomed by her as she straightened out, but the gravity defying make-shift weapons found a home on Will Schuester's chest. He made a small grunting noise and Rachel looked back at him curiously.

"I'm sorry. Did Mr. Invincible justsay Owie?" Rachel mocked.

"Good to see the inner bitch didn't get left out during reincarnation," Will rolled his eyes. He nodded towards the approaching attacker and asked, "Do you expect me to take care of this guy?"

"I wouldn't want you to hurt yourself," Rachel muttered as she jumped into the air, avoiding another round of discs as she too hovered, defying gravity courtesy of Sam's flying skills. She sped through the air until she was within reaching distance of the clearly surprised young man. She drew on all of her strength and pushed against their attacker's chest with both hands. Thanks to Finn's super strength, gravity boy went flying back fifty feet, straight into the wall at the end of the hallway. She sang exuberantly, "You're never gonna bring me down!"

Schue looked at her in extreme annoyance. "I've asked this of the heavens a million times before. But please. Kill me now."

"Incoming!" Rudy announced. "See you Aunt Tina! Uncle Mike!"

Rudy and Blaine blipped out. Leaving again to go and retrieve Finn and Mercedes. Sam and Quinn had already arrived on the last trip and now the majority of the Glee club was standing dumbstruck in the white space, alternating between staring at Adelaide and staring at a standing, walking Artie.

"Artie!" Tina and Mike chorused in unison.

"You look badass, dude!" Mike congratulated.

"What's it feel like?" Tina wondered.

"Uhm, crazy," Artie shrugged. "And not quite real yet. I know that I'm still back there, in that room. My body is still in a coma. My real legs aren't quite there yet."

"But they will be," Adelaide whispered to her Uncle. "I promise."

"Spoilers, kiddo," Santana warned.

"Half of you know it already, when you came to the future before," Adelaide shrugged. "It's what screwed everything up in the first place."

"Adelaide!" Finn announced as she arrived in the white space with Mercedes, Rudy and Blaine. He rushed over and ruffled her hair. "You got bigger."

"It's been twelve years, since I saw you last Uncle Finn. Of course I got bigger," Adelaide explained patiently. She looked back to the other Gleek's and shrugged. "Half of you came to the future. Something there went wrong. Rudy and I are trying to fix it..."

"And if you don't fix it?" Puck demanded.

"You've seen Back to the Future," Adelaide shrugged.

A silence took over the room as they all realized that the future they had thought was so secure was now hanging by a tether. Adelaide looked to the past version of her father, looking so very much like her mother at that moment that Puck could swear that his heart broke. He hated to see that look of anxiety and fear on Rachel's face. To see it on his future daughter's face was unbearable.

"We're not there yet, obviously. We're here," Rudy insisted. "And there's still a lot of stuff to do...we're not disappearing photographs yet."

"That's my boy," Artie smiled. He held up a finger and wondered, "Question? Why can Finn remember when he was the first to forget?"

"Mysteries of the universe, Daddio," Rudy shrugged. "Some things just can't be explained."

The pile of unconscious bodies strewn through the hallways of dark facility were beginning to hit the double digits. Rachel had been taking care of most of the super powered freaks, but every once in a while, Schue would manage to get in a couple of therapeutic blows. They reached a set of metal doors and exchanged a wordless nod.

"How do you know, though?" Schue wondered.

"I can feel it. Beyond this door is the person that's causing all this trouble."

The sound of trite, single person slow clapping drew their attention, and Will and Rachel set their eyes on what could only be described as a ninety-year old Sue Sylvester in a white sports jacket. Her glinting, clearly evil blue eyes held a sense of wonder mixed with clear anger as she stared appraisingly at the intruders.

"Welcome to the Shiro Frieden's world headquarters, I am Strauss," she smiled, the gesture purely superficial. She clearly didn't want to be smiling at the at the moment. "I must admit, you caught us slightly unaware. We had no idea that this little girl existed. Her capabilities far outweigh a single one of our children's capabilities."

"Please don't say children," Will growled. "Whatever you did to me...whatever these kids have of mine...they aren't my children."

"They are your genetic descendents," Strauss disputed. "Of course they are your children. Well-to be honest, the first round of your children didn't turn out so well. These are more like...the second batch, if you will."

"You're vile. And disgusting," Rachel murmured. "These are people. What are you doing with them?"

"None of your business, anomaly child," Strauss shot back. "You may be strong, but my sources tell me you are greatly weakening. You may be able to take one of my children. But not all of them."

Will shuddered, knowing that it was true. What happened next was something he would never be able to explain, even if he lived three hundred more years.

He gripped Rachel's hand.

And suddenly the flood gates opened and he could feel his energy sapping completely. He could feel every part of him opening up as he willingly (even though he still loathed everything and everyone) gave her every last bit of acceptance he could.

A few seconds passed, although between the two of them, it felt like every second, ever tiny minute that Schue had lived. Everything was there. Every thought, every emotion, ever ounce of power.

Rachel felt something that had been missing since her last lifetime appear in front of her and she grabbed it, with absolutely no intention of ever letting it go.

The moment passed and Rachel dropped Schue's hand as he staggered backwards. She flew forward and before anything could happen, before Strauss could even inhale, Rachel's hand was around Strauss's throat, crushing against her windpipe in a very uncomfortable manner.

"Give me the person who is making my friends forget."

"Time to go...time to go NOW, Where's Blaine...let's go!" Puck hollered, startling Adelaide as she jumped in place next to her dad. "Sorry kitten, but we have to get a move on. Sparky needs us."

"What do you feel? How can you feel ANYTHING here, it's nothing," Quinn disputed.

"I just feel...she's using Schue. That means its a last resort kind of thing. She's accepting Schue's...whatever, she did with all of us, she's doing with him now," Puck struggled to articulate.

"Don't be jealous. She loves you," Kurt insisted in a bored fashion. "No love triangles with creepy three hundred year old unvampirey vampires."

"I get it," Tina nodded, feeling it in her gut too. She looked to Rudy and said, "Go and get Brittany...let's go."

"No need," Rudy shook his head. He watched as Artie began to shake, commanding everyone's attention.

"Shit...that doesn't feel good," Artie grumbled, his voice wobbly and shaky. He groaned in pain and opened his mouth to warn his friends when suddenly he was ripped from Blaine's transitional space. He let out a gutteral scream as his eyes went shut, the pain from his premonition echoing through his newly rebuilt spinal cord. He opened his eyes and Brittany was staring down at him curiously.

"How's Rudolpho?" she cooed, smoothing the hair off of Artie's sweaty brow.

"How do you..."

"Rachel can feel him, and she let me know," Brittany shrugged.

"Right...brain waves," Artie cringed as residual pain rocketed through his entire body. "These visions are going to suck if it hurts all the time...but, seriously, I hope that the others head to Germany. Like NOW. Rachel is going to need backup. No amount of Schue power is going to get her through that alone."

Thoughts? Theories? Questions?

I hope you enjoyed this! In the next week I hope to update my other works in progress before posting another Misfits chapter. Everyone form a prayer circle that the gerbil in my brain keeps working!

Next up?

Chapter 68 - "Never Would Have Run Through the Blinding Pain"