The heavy layer of mist that morning gave the vacant football field an oddly eerie look. The fog was so thick that anyone standing on the freshly-cut grass would not be able to see the giant, square shape that was the main building of McKinley High, which stood a few hundred yards away from the north side of the field. However, there was a smaller, very noticeable figure emerging from that direction, a person with a bright red outfit that was clearly visible on the horizon.

As the figure walked closer, more details could be spotted; it was a woman—and a very tall one at that, at about six-and-a-half feet in height—wearing a red tracksuit and a purple cape that flapped and billowed out behind her in the morning breeze. On her head she wore a rather formidable-looking helmet, painted red and purple to match her outfit; her short blonde hair was kept tightly hidden under it. Around her neck was a silver whistle, while in her hand she held a megaphone. She marched on with her whole body standing up straight and a stern expression on her face, as though she were making sure that anyone that saw her knew she was important, as if they couldn't already tell.

Soon it was clear that the woman was not the only one marching onto the field; behind her loomed a row of figures all dressed in the same bright red, and behind them another row, and behind them another…there were at least a hundred young men and women behind her, all of them wearing tight uniforms the same color as the woman's tracksuit. But instead of wearing capes or helmets, the marching people in uniforms wore plain metal collars around their necks. All of them looked to be in their early to late teens.

The woman and her small army kept marching until all were on the field; they then halted in unison, and their leader did a quick pivot on her heel, turning to face the ones in uniform. Her dark eyes narrowed to catlike slits, and she glanced up and down the rows, glaring at each and every one of the soldiers' faces. However, they all continued to look straight on, not moving an inch, making the football field feel somewhat more eerie than it had been without them.

Suddenly the woman's eyes settled on a young man standing a little to the left of her in the second row. He seemed to be blinking more than the rest of the soldiers, and the woman had noticed him clenching and unclenching his fists several times. Her cold, soulless eyes stared straight into his soft ones for several moments; it was enough to make those standing around the boy to shift ever so slightly away from him, as though they were afraid that the woman could somehow harm them with her stare if they stood too close to the soldier she had rested her gaze on. Then the boy couldn't resist; he gulped, which, in the intensely silent atmosphere, was more than noticeable by everyone there.

And that was that. The woman lifted her arm up at an angle perpendicular to her body, her hand outstretched as though she were trying to grab onto something out of her reach. As her fingers trembled slightly, the metal collar on the boy tightened around his throat, and he collapsed onto the ground, gasping and sputtering for air.

Her lips set in a sneer, the woman briskly walked forward, shoving two soldiers in the front row out of her way so she could get to the boy. She kneeled down and watched with an almost curious expression as he continued to writhe on the ground, trying desperately to breath. When the soldier's pale face began to turn an ugly shade of blue, and his writhing slowly began to die down, the woman lifted her hand again, and the metal collar once again widened to properly fit his throat. The boy took several long gasps of air, both fists clenching the grass so tightly that his knuckles were white.

The woman leaned forward and whispered into the boy's ear, so quietly that only he could hear, "Have you learned your lesson, Hank?"

"Y-yes, Ma-Mag-Magneto," the boy answered between desperate breaths. "D-don't stray out of fa-fa-formation."

"There's a good boy. Now, up, soldier." Magneto stood up and roughly kicked Hank's shoulder; the boy groaned in pain, but after a moment he managed to pick himself up off the ground and stand in the same formal position as the rest of the soldiers.

Magneto was now at the front of the army once more, and was addressing all of them using her megaphone—not that she needed it, as her voice was naturally loud and booming. "I am aware that all of you just got back from your so-called summer vacation, but that doesn't excuse lazy behavior while practicing standard Cheerio exercises. All of you seem to have forgotten that you are not only McKinley High's cheerleading squad—you are also the school's team of defenders if it were ever to come under harm. I'm sure all of you have heard what they've been saying on the news, about what the government's been predicting about mutants. For all we know, there can be an uprising any day now that could reach the small population of mutants at this school—our own so-called allies could turn on us at any minute!

"That is why we must always keep a state of fear and intimidation at McKinley. If certain students and faculty such as the mutants were to ever grow more confident, they wouldn't hesitate to use whatever abilities they have to torture and torment all of us. That is your main job, Cheerios, and don't you ever forget it. And if any of you think this is hard?" She let out a short, bitter laugh. "Well, then, try being water-boarded—now that's hard!"

...

Professor William Charles Francis Schuester was a man of many talents. For starters, he was McKinley High's Spanish teacher, a position that he had kept consistently for five years now and was quite happy with and skilled at. Not only was he fluent in the language and knew a lot about the culture that came with it, he was an expert when it came to interacting with his pupils and getting them interesting in the subject. Most of his students passed his course with flying colors. Well, most of them—but the ones that didn't usually were the ones that didn't see the learning aspect school as important in the slightest, being too focused on the football team or the Cheerios or some other extracurricular activity that McKinley had to offer.

Besides teaching Spanish, Professor Schuester had stayed on good terms with McKinley High's principal, known by everyone as Figgins, for all five years of his career teaching there. He was respected by the students (most of them), well-liked by the faculty and staff (most of them), and managed to avoid of the wrath of the cheerleading coach Sue Erika Sylvester, known by the students as her self-proclaimed identity Magneto. Well, by avoided, he meant he didn't get sabotaged by her in some cruel, despicable way at least once a week like most of the other teachers did.

And then there was the whole mine-reading thing, but Will saw that as less of a talent and more of a liability. He had known he was a telepath since the age of twelve and had spent every waking moment as a teen trying to control his ability. While the act of getting to read other people's thoughts and using those thoughts to manipulate them had sounded interesting to him at first, he soon learned how difficult it was to control his powers; he could never focus on one person's mind at a time when he was in a room with more than one person besides himself. Instead, he heard every person's thoughts, every single one of them, to the point where he either had to close off his powers or be forced to constantly have the noise of people's private musings stirring in his ear. Besides, even when he was teen, he knew what the general population's opinion on mutants was. And that was what he was: a mutant, whether he liked it or not. So instead of trying to train himself to control his powers like other mutants did, he took the other, easier route: forget he even had them. He hadn't read a single mind in nearly fifteen years.

But he was happier this way, living a normal life, driving his beat-up, rusty car to work at seven-thirty in the morning, his mind focused on nothing but grading Spanish tests and reminding Finn Hudson to turn in his essay. This was the good life.

Luckily, Will realized, he wouldn't have to wait too long to talk to Finn; as he pulled into the school parking lot, he saw the very tall, black-haired sophomore and a bunch of his friends from the football team hanging around one of the dumpsters, chatting with another one of Will's students, a boy named Kurt Hummel. The young professor smiled, glad that Kurt was starting the first few weeks of school off right by making some new friends. He knew it was a difficult thing for Kurt to do for two reasons: one, he had an obsession with fashion designers and hair and skin care, much more than most boys his age and even most girls, and two, he happened to be a mutant. It had been fairly obvious right from the start of freshman year, when everyone in his gym class noticed how he could outrun the other kids by miles, or jump so high and so far that it looked like was flying. Turns out that he had tougher skin that most humans and could fly at 99% of the speed of light—who would've guessed?

At the moment, Kurt was wearing black skinny jeans and a black and white jacket with a blue bursting star stitched onto the side; it looked like he had sown it on himself. Finn and the others were wearing their customary red football jackets with "MCKINLEY" on the front in big white letters. Will couldn't help but think of the "Red vs. Blue" web series that had been a brief obsession among the school's male students last year. Maybe Kurt and the football players were trying to reenact it.

"Making some new friends, Kurt?" asked Will, walking over and patting the boy's shoulder.

"Please, don't touch the jacket," he mumbled, one hand reaching up and lightly pushing Will's hand off.

"Kurt, your hand is shaking," said Will, his brown eyes narrowing in concern. "Are you cold? The weather isn't even that bad, we haven't had a perfect day like this since—"

"Professor Schue, don't you have to get to class early?" asked one of the football players, a heavily-built kid with a short mohawk that ran along his head like a shark's fin. Will knew who he was; his name was Noah Puckerman, though everyone, students and teachers alike, referred to him as Puck. He was one of the biggest troublemakers at McKinley, or even the whole town of Lima, Ohio, but he seemed to friends with everyone in the school—everyone that was on a sports team or a Cheerio, that is.

"Yeah, Professor, it's kinda weird having a conversation with each other when there's a teacher around, you know?" added Finn. The rest of the football team nodded and murmured in agreement, though that could just be because Finn was the captain of the team. Kurt merely looked down at the ground, his face more pale than ever.

"Don't worry, I get it, you guys," said Will, his eyes still trained on Kurt as he slowly began to walk towards the main building. "And Finn, that report needs to be turned in by the end of this week, no exceptions."

"Almost done with almost all of it, Professor," stammered Finn. Even without his telepathic abilities, Will could tell Finn was lying.

...

"It's hammer time!" said Puck when the professor was out of earshot, a wide grin on his face as he and Matt, another member of the team, picked Kurt up—Puck with his arms wrapped around Kurt's shoulders, and Matt roughly lifting the boy by his ankles.

"Please, don't!" pleaded Kurt. "This jacket is from Marc Jacob's new collection."

"Is it really?" asked Matt in an over-dramatic tone. The other football players guffawed in laughter.

"With some little touches added by myself," added Kurt, flipping a strand of his light brown hair out of his face. "But please, you don't understand, I can't ruin this jacket—"

"Take it off, then," said Finn.

The rest of his team stared at him.

"Here, just let him take off his jacket," repeated Finn. "I'll hold it for him."

Puck and Matt hesitantly set Kurt down. The boy quickly pulled off his jacket, revealing a plain white T-shirt underneath, and shoved it roughly into Finn's arms.

"Thanks for ruining my outfit," muttered Kurt in disgust.

"Okay, you can do it now," said Finn, nodding towards the two football players.

With that, they picked Kurt up again and unceremoniously threw him into the dumpster.

...

Will was in the main hall of the school now, but something had stopped him on the way to his classroom. Whenever he walked by the awards cabinet every morning when he came to McKinley and every afternoon when he left, he had never noticed a particular trophy that stood there, along with a photograph of Lillian Adler, a person he had know well back in his high school days at McKinley.

But this morning, for some reason, he did notice such things, and as the students walked back and forth past him on their way to class, he stood in front of the cabinet on his eyes on the trophy won at the 1993 Show Choir National Championship. The show choir (or Glee Club, as it was otherwise called) that he had been a part of. The championship that he had helped win.

The picture of Ms. Adler, the faculty supervisor for the Glee Club that year, resided on a plaque next to the trophy. Below the photograph was her birth and death dates…wait, death date? According to the plaque, she had passed away in 1997. Twelve years had passed, and this was the first time Will had heard that she died. Of course, it did make sense—she was getting up there in her years back when Will was in the Glee Club, and he remembered that she was walking with a cane when they went to the National championships in New York. That was the last time Will ever saw her, and ever would see her.

A little upset by this new discovery, the professor looked at what was engraved below the dates and couldn't help but smile. It was Lillian Adler's signature phrase: "By its very definition, Glee is about opening yourself up to joy." Will couldn't have said it any better, because Glee Club—at least the way Ms. Adler taught it—was much more than just singing show tunes and dancing around on a stage. It was about acceptance, believing in yourself…

Back then, Will had hope that he'd be able to control his mutant powers, after meeting other mutants in Glee Club who had knew how to properly use their abilities. But after he graduated, married Terri (his girlfriend since he was 16 and a former cheerleader at McKinley, but before Magneto moved in and created the Cheerios), and got a job as an accountant, he had once again felt alone and decided to give up. Even after he quit his job at the bank and began teaching, once again being introduced to mutants who were in the same position that he was in high school, he still thought it was too late and too much useless work to try and become an expert telepath.

What was the point in it, anyway? Terri and Ms. Adler were the only people in the world who knew he had the ability to read minds, and he wanted it to stay that way. He was lucky; he had a power that could easily be hidden, one that he didn't have to use, one that wasn't visible to everyone around him. Many of the mutant students at McKinley High didn't have that liberty, but the truth was, he was too afraid to out himself as a mutant and try to help them. To him, it was more trouble than it was worth.

...

"Como esta usted?" said Professor Schuester. "Yo me llamo Guiermo."

"Como esta usted, yo me llamo Guiermo," Finn recited lazily along with the rest of the Spanish class. He hated having Spanish first thing in the morning. True, it was his most interesting class, but that wasn't saying much, seeing as he thought all his other classes and teachers sucked. Mostly he hated having to recite Spanish phrases over and over again when it felt like he just rolled out of bed a few minutes ago.

His eyes were drawn to the clock on the wall, and he tapped his pencil rapidly on his desk, as though that would make this period go by faster. Today, he especially didn't want to study Spanish because he had other more important things on his mind. It had happened again yesterday while playing COD; this weird red light flashed for a split second, blocking his vision, and when he could see again, there was a simmering hole in the middle of his television screen. He had had to explain to his mother that he had thrown his controller at the TV in frustration at not winning a level. She wasn't too happy with him, and she wasn't going to go out and buy a whole new TV set, which meant no video games for quite a while.

The same thing had happened several times now, the first being around the end of freshman year. While he was cleaning out his locker in the changing room, the red light had flashed, and when it was gone, he noticed a small hole, about an inch in diameter, that had burned right through the metal door. Four months later, and he was still trying to figure out what was going on. He did remember that, a few seconds before the red light flashed, he felt this burning feeling in his eyes. Did that mean that…no, that was impossible. If Finn turned out to be…one of them, wouldn't he had known by now? He was already 16, and nothing like this had ever happened to him before.

And then he felt it again, just now: the burning feeling in his eyes. Only this time, it was more intense than ever before. Before he could react, the red light blocked his vision, for just a second. When it was gone, Finn gasped; the spot on the whiteboard that he had been staring at now had a gaping hole in it, much bigger and more noticeable than the tiny one that had been burned into the door of his locker.

Finn was aware that every pair of eyes in the room was staring at him now, and he quickly looked down at his notebook, not sure what to do or say. Professor Schuester had stopped reciting Spanish and was now looking back and forth between Finn and the hole in the whiteboard.

"What just happened?" asked Professor Schue.

"Don't know," answered Mike Chang, who was seated to Finn's right. "I was looking down at my notes when I saw this red light flash near Finn. I looked over and saw he was staring at the whiteboard, and then I noticed there was a hole burned in it."

The other students nodded in agreement. Finn sighed in relief; so no one had actually seen him do anything to the whiteboard.

"Finn, I'd like to see you after class," said Professor Schuester.

"Yes, sir," murmured Finn.

When the bell rang and all the other students filed out of the classroom, Finn walked up to the professor, who was seated at his desk. "Professor, I'm so sorry—"

"Look, Finn, all I want is an explanation," interrupted Professor Schuester. "I was looking down at the textbook for more exercises, and when I looked up, there was a searing hole in the whiteboard and everyone was staring at you."

"It…it's this little toy I got at the joke shop in town," said Finn. "It's this little red ball that lights up when you throw it, and when it hits something, it's supposed to create a little crater or…or something like that."

"Well, I can't honestly say that's the worst prank I've seen at this school, what with all that Puck's done," said the professor. "However, I don't usually expect this sort of thing from you. I'll let you off with a warning, and you'll need to pay at least partially for the damages you did to my whiteboard, but please don't try something like this again, okay?"

"Don't worry, Professor Schue, I won't!" shouted Finn, racing out into the hall so he could get to his next class on time.

...

After Lillian Adler passed away and the members who won the National Championship of '93 graduated, the Glee Club slowly declined until it was a shell of its former self. It never managed to acquire more than five members at a time, and currently it was run by Sandy Ryerson, who gave nearly the entire student body the creeps.

And for good reason, as Rachel Berry could attest to. The Glee Club member stood outside of the choir room, peeking through the crack in the door and watching as Mr. Ryerson practiced the solo for their next number with Hank, a Cheerio who had joined the Glee Club as punishment for repeatedly breaking out of ranks during Magneto's repeated marching routines. On the first day that Hank attended rehearsals, Mr. Ryerson had given him the solo, and Rachel knew it wasn't because Hank was talented; he could barely carry a quarter note and he was always off-key. Besides, Rachel was always given the solos, due to her superior talent over everyone else in the club. At least, that was how she saw it.

So here Rachel was, eavesdropping on Mr. Ryerson and Hank to figure out the real reason why the boy had gotten the solo. Just as she suspected him to do, Mr. Ryerson slowly twirled off his pink scarf with his free hand that wasn't playing the piano. His hand then crept slowly towards Hank's chest. For Rachel, that was enough evidence; in rage, she caused a small flame, like that on a candle, to appear on the palm of her hand, which she quickly extinguished with a clench of her fists. Being a mutant could be tricky sometimes. Brushing off the resulting soot and ash on her skirt, she stormed down the hallways towards Principal Figgins's office.

...

"Hey, where's the coffee pot?" asked Will. After second period, he always headed over to the teacher's lounge to get some coffee, but without a coffee pot, that would be downright impossible.

"Figgins cut the coffee budget." Will looked behind him to see Ken Tanaka, McKinley's football coach and a great beast of a man whose shorts were even shorter than his temper. "I say we go on strike."

"That won't be necessary." Just then Magneto walked into the lounge, carrying four Starbucks lattes with her.

Ken raced towards her like a wild animal, grabbing a latte for himself before seating himself at one of the tables. Will followed behind him, taking a cup and noticing that there was one other person at the table Ken was seated at: Emma Pillsbury, the school guidance counselor. Her short ginger hair and cute pink sweater were easily recognizable, as were her huge brown eyes that reminded Will of a doe.

"Oh, hi, Will!" greeted Emma cheerfully, waving one of her plastic-gloved hands at him. It looked like she was going to eat an early lunch, as she had a bag of grapes in front of her and was scrubbing the table with her other gloved hand. There was no denying that the woman was a neat freak.

"Hey, there, Emma," said Will, smiling at her as he sat down next to Ken. "God, I can't believe it's only Monday. How was your weekend?"

"Alright, I suppose," she answered, trying to scratch off a spot on the table. "But a pipe exploded in my apartment building, it was awful."

"Ah, so that's why I didn't see you at the meat market," said Ken.

"Yes, that would be why," said Emma, frowning. "Though to be honest, those places aren't that great, you know? It's very unclean and dirty and messy and…" She shivered and went back to her cleaning. "Also, Sue, what's with all the lattes?"

"First of all, address me by Magneto," the tall cheerleading coach said coldly. "At least whenever I have the helmet on. Which is now. And always. Second of all, I brought the lattes because I just felt so awful that Figgins cut the coffee budget to pay for a nutritionist for the Cheerios."

"Yeah, I heard you went, oh, I don't know, six hundred dollars over budget with that, didn't you?" said Emma, her cheerfulness dripping with sarcasm.

"My performers didn't get on Fox Sports Net last year because they ate at Bacon Junction," snarled Magneto.

"Since when are cheerleaders also considered performers?" asked Emma.

There was a deadly silence in the lounge.

"Your resentment…is delicious," Magneto hissed, before leaving the room, most likely to plan another strenuous routine for her cheerleaders. No, performers.

"Well, that was intense," said Will.

"Indeed," muttered Ken.

"Oh, I almost forgot: did you two hear that Sandy Ryerson got fired?" asked Emma.

"He did?" said Will, shocked. "When?"

"Just a few minutes ago," answered Emma. "Figgins's office is right next to mine. I heard the whole conversation. That short obnoxious girl, Rachel Berry—you know who I'm talking about, she's a mutant—she accused Sandy of inappropriately touching one of the students. And then Figgins called him into his office, and he got fired. And that was that."

"But…but who's going to take over Glee Club?" asked Will.

"Don't know," murmured Emma. "It's all rather unfortunate—a lot of the kids in that club were mutants. It was sort of what they all considered their safe place, I guess. Even if none of them could sing particularly well, they were all accepted there."

An idea was forming in Will's head, one that he would later think to be crazy, borderline insanity, even. But at the time, it made all the sense in the world.

...

"I'd like to take over Glee Club," said Will.

"Would you like to captain the Titanic, too?" asked Principal Figgins dryly.

"I think I can make it great again," the professor explained, trying to ignore the weird smell that was in the principal's office. "There is no joy in any of these kids, they feel invisible. That's why everyone of them has a MySpace page."

"MySpace?" repeated Figgins in exasperation. "C'mon, Will, MySpace is dead! Facebook is all the rage now. Even I know that!"

"Whatever," groaned Will. "Just tell me if it's okay to get the club rolling again. It can't be that hard, can it?"

"Sixty bucks a month," said Figgins. "That's how much I need to keep this program running."

"And you expect me to pay for it?"

"Well, I'm certainly not going to pay for it. We're not talking about Cheerios here, Will. They were on Fox Sports Net last year! Once the show choir starts bringing that kind of prestige to the school again, you can have all the money you want. Until then, I need sixty bucks a month, and you've got to use the costumes and props we have already. Oh, but we need the stools for woodshop."

That night, Will laid awake in his bed, trying to figure out how to convince his wife Terri to pay sixty dollars a month for the Glee Club. However, he knew he had even bigger problems; if he was going to bring the show choir back to its glory days, he needed to get the students at McKinley motivated. This was now about more than just the singing and dancing aspect; there were mutants at McKinley who needed help, and whether Will considered himself to be one of them or not, he knew he hadn't done his best in assisting them. How he was going to help them, exactly…that he couldn't tell. One thing was for sure: they needed a new name. But what sort of name would fit…

"New Directions!" he whispered excitedly…before quickly realizing how dirty the name sounded.