Glee Fic: There's Nothing Ironic About Slaying (3/4)

[sceptick]

Friday

Around five o’clock, Rachel entered the football stands with the rest of the crowd. Somehow, despite their complete and utter lack of talent, the McKinley Titans always managed to attract a good audience. The two teams were warming up on the field, the band was setting up in their corner, and the spectators were finding their seats. The stage was very nearly set.

Just as she, Kurt, and Mercedes were passing the band on their way to where some of their glee friends were waiting, Rachel peeled off. Before leaving for the game, she had stashed a video camera in her bag. Once she made it through the crowd - travelling counter-current was absolute hell, particularly given her diminutive height - she set it up on its tripod just behind the band. No one ever sat behind them; they were almost as awful as the football players, and far louder. Rachel was a firm believer in the importance of reviewing your performance afterwards, and it wouldn’t do to have people, god forbid, walking in front of the camera.

Once she had double- and triple-checked that the camera was recording, she made her way back to Mercedes and Kurt where they sat with Mike, Tina, and the rest of the non-football playing members of the glee club. She settled down into the seat they’d saved for her between them, but every muscle in her body was on high alert as she stared down at the field. It looked innocent enough, sure, but underneath that sprightly green grass lay the bones of the most evil creature Rachel had ever battled.

Just then, the football teams began to troop back into their respective locker rooms. Rachel shifted in her seat. She had no clue when exactly Quinn would make her move, but something told her it would be soon. There was a faint tingling in the back of her neck, clueing her in to the presence of vampires. None were visible as of yet, but they were there. They were waiting.

Well, so was she.

First things first, though. “Did you get Sam to hide the box like I asked?” she said, turning to Mercedes, who nodded.

“Sure did. It’s down there, under the Titan’s bench.”

“And how did you convince him to do that, Miss Jones?” Kurt asked, smirking teasingly, and Mercedes blushed and ducked her head.

“Mind your own business, Kurt,” she said. Kurt laughed, smacking her on the arm.

“Maybe she didn’t even have to lie,” Rachel teased, coming out of her pre-show daze to join in to their fun. “Maybe she just had to-- to bat her eyes and he carried the box off like a gentleman without another word!” She wouldn’t actually have been surprised if that were the case. Mercedes was very pretty, and Sam was clearly crushing.

Kurt laughed and said, “I bet you told him they were accessories for your planned post-victory canoodling behind the bleachers, didn’t you? Mercedes, you’re just terrible.”

“Kurt!” Mercedes smacked Kurt in the arm, giggling helplessly. “No. I just -- I told him that --”

The off-key blare of a trumpet from the marching band cut her off, and they fell silent. “Ladies and gentlemen,” the announcer called, “your McKinley Titans!”

They waited, and they waited some more, but the field remained empty.

The trumpet sounded again, louder than before, with an obviously impatient edge to it. Finally both teams came traipsing out, their thundering footsteps drowning out the confused murmurs coming from the crowd. Rachel’s eyes narrowed. The tingling had grown stronger, and the way the players were moving, slowly, aimlessly, around the center of the field, was putting her on edge. She scanned the area around the field. Her fists clenched when she noticed the leggy blonde who emerged from the shadows and skipped over to the opposing team’s bench. Brittany, she remembered. Brittany, who sat down cross-legged to enjoy the show.

The other two couldn’t be far behind. Time for the final act to begin: the denouement. She rose to her feet, lifting her head to an appropriately high angle and clenching her fist. Let the real game begin, Rachel thought. Football had nothing on her.

The crowd’s bemused buzz grew louder as the players continued to mull around the field with no clear purpose. Then, suddenly, Santana came running out of the McKinley changing room, still wearing that bloody Cheerio’s uniform, and a spontaneous outcry arose. People in the crowd rose to their feet, screaming and gesturing. For a moment Rachel actually thought that the people of Lima had learned some self-preservation and had sensed the vampire’s evil nature, but the screaming had an undeniably relieved and triumphant note to it.

“They think one of the Cheerios survived,” Kurt murmured, his eyes wide with horror. “What kind of monster would create hope just to --”

“A vampire,” Rachel replied shortly. Down on the field, Santana danced and shimmied, laughing. While Rachel couldn’t remember ever loathing anyone more, she was reluctantly impressed by the vampire’s stage presence, not to mention her undeniable skill at making an entrance.

Rachel clenched her fists and began making her way down to the field, winding her way through cheering fans whose eyes were fixed on Santana. Behind her, she heard Kurt yell, “She doesn’t even go here!” and then Mercedes' voice, raised in agreement: “Sit your fool asses down, people, and use your heads! None of you’ve ever seen this girl in your life!”

Santana laughed, waving at the audience, then turned around to face the teams. She clapped her hands once, yelling something indistinguishable. The players of both teams, Rachel realized, had to be under her thrall -- they immediately dropped to the ground. As Rachel watched in horror, struggling to push her way past the crowds without accidentally hurting anyone, the boys started digging at the ground in the dead center of the field with their bare hands. Hunks of sod and grass flew through the air over their heads. Santana danced around them in a mockery of a cheer routine, waving a pair of pompoms she’d gotten from who-knows-where.

Rachel was going to wipe the field with her.

She was just shoving through the final row of people, tossing careless “Sorry!”’s over her shoulder, when Quinn stalked out onto the field, holding a bullhorn in one hand and a shovel in the other. She tossed the shovel to Sam Evans with a disdainful glance, then raised the bullhorn over her head. It sounded out, whiny and loud and awful, and then fell silent along with the crowd.

“Hello, McKinley!” Quinn said, smiling charmingly. She didn’t bother using the bullhorn; the stands were so quiet that it wouldn’t have been necessary. “I’m going to need to ask you all to remain in your seats. The gates surrounding this place are locked, and I don’t want to have to deal with any excess mess, so just stay where you are.”

Rachel stepped out onto the pitch at that moment, chin held defiantly high and mouth open with a ringingly heroic statement warm on her tongue. “People of --  mmph!” Brittany appeared from the shadows, as quiet on her feet as a cat, and wrapped an arm around Rachel’s neck, silencing her instantly.

“I hear Slayer blood is, like, maple syrup and cheesecake at the same time,” Brittany said in a flat voice, then she tilted Rachel’s head to the side and nuzzled her neck. Rachel shuddered.

The doors to the changing rooms burst open again, and this time a group of ten hulking vamps, each set with a malicious grin and a bad sense of hygiene, entered the field. They spread out, surrounding the field. Their eyes watched the crowd hungrily.

“Don’t worry about these creeps, folks,” Quinn called. “They’re just here to make sure you do as I say. All muscle and no brain. Kind of like everyone else in this dump of a town, huh? Anyway. Just do as you’re told and everything will be fine. Really, you might as well just relax. There is literally nothing you can do to stop this.”

The football players continued to dig as the assembled audience stayed frozen in silence. There was fear in the air, fear so potent that Rachel could almost smell it. Whatever else could be said about the residents of Lima, they had developed amazing survival instincts. The only sound was the droning huff of the players’ heavy breathing, and the thunk of Sam’s shovel. The work went faster with the shovel; soon players were climbing into a shallow pit to dig deeper. Quinn circled the hole like a shark, whispering sweet nothings to the players.

It seemed like the whole world was waiting for something to happen.

Santana abandoned Quinn to oversee the boys alone, and she stalked back towards Brittany with a huff. When she reached them, she glanced Rachel over briefly before dismissing her with a flick of her ponytail. “Should’ve known Q’d be getting her chuckles off on this,” she said to Brittany. “She’s practically creaming herself over all the attention the crowd’s giving her. It’s disgusting. She’s like an alleycat being offered catnip for the first time in her life, complete with smells and ringworm.”

“Don’t be mad because they’re staring at her now, instead of you,” Brittany said, reaching out with her free hand to twine her pinky finger with Santana’s. “I’m staring at you. The stars are staring at you.”

And that was - all right, it was sweet, creepy but sweet, Rachel had to admit. Vampires in love, though... something about it seemed downright wrong to her. In the back of her mind she could hear Kurt raising an eyebrow at her seeming hypocrisy, but Finn -- Finn was a completely different case. Finn had a soul, after all. The situations weren’t alike in the slightest, so Rachel quashed down Kurt’s imagined dissent with nary a moment of self-doubt.

A shout went up from the hole, something triumphant and primal. Then Sam Evans climbed out of the pit, waving a single, dirty bone in the air. His eyes, Rachel saw, sought out Quinn’s immediately, and he placed it reverently at her feet. Santana rolled her eyes, but Brittany giggled softly. “Round and round the garden, like a football player,” she whispered. The doors to the changing rooms burst open again, and this time a group of ten hulking vamps, each set with a malicious grin and a bad sense of hygiene, entered the field.

“Don’t worry about the creeps surrounding the stands, folks,” Quinn called. “They’re just there to make sure you do as I say. All muscle and no brain. Kind of like everyone else in this dump of a town, huh? Anyway. Just do as you’re told and everything will be fine.”

Rachel fumed in silence, but held her peace. Her time would come.

There was a dull thud sound from the pit, and Brittany grinned. ”Bzzt,” she said.

Rachel rolled her eyes. “You are bizarre, do you know that? And frankly I’m beginning to wonder if it’s all just an act, because no one could be as random and incomprehensible as you are!”

“Careful, you morons,” Quinn yelled, before Rachel could continue. “If you so much as chip one bone I will make the remainder of your lives a living hell.”

Santana chuckled, wrapping her arms around Brittany’s waist from behind. Her knuckles dug into Rachel’s spine. “Operation, Britt-Britt? Really?”

“I like it,” Brittany replied absently, watching as the football players carefully lifted the Master’s bones out of the ground. Rachel’s heart began to pound and her head spun. They were really doing it. Oh god, she thought, it was actually happening.

Brittany continued, “It’s good practice.”

Santana laughed, and leaned in for a kiss. Rachel grabbed her moment. Taking advantage of Brittany and Santana’s distraction, she wiggled until she had room enough to move, then jammed her elbow viciously into Brittany’s spleen, yanking at the arm around her neck with her free hand simultaneously. She burst free, and took off at a dead sprint towards the benches.

One vampire came at her from the side, his arms outstretched and his face distorted. She didn’t waste any time. As the crowd, or at least those who had noticed her predicament, cried out, she ducked low, grabbing his wrists and tumbling him over her shoulder. For once, she felt grateful for her short stature -- it came in handy for overbalancing her opponents, but little else. Well, it also guaranteed that she was always shorter than any potential male co-star the drama department could throw at her, which was definitely a bonus. It wasn’t that Rachel thought there was anything wrong with a tall girl dating a shorter guy, it was simply that she found the aesthetics of a relationship between one such as herself and a taller man (say, Finn) far better.

Anyway.

The vamp hit the ground with a thud and Rachel was upright again, sprinting headlong for her box. Two more peeled off from sentry duty downstage left, a woman and a man in ratty leather, and started loping towards her. Rachel was so close, so close. She threw herself forwards as she reached out and snatched the box to her body, tucking it in close as she slammed into the ground with a thud, sliding a few feet and thumping her forehead on the edge of the bench.

The woman came at her with her foot aimed at Rachel’s ribs, which was completely unacceptable. Rachel couldn’t very well sing with broken ribs. Even the tiniest fracture would be disastrous.

In other words, this harpy was going down.

When the foot came into range, Rachel’s stake was waiting for it. Then, while the vamp jumped and shrieked, holding her ravaged foot in one hand, Rachel flipped herself up and put her stake to use a second time, dusting the vamp with ease.

There were three more surrounding the stands in front of her, including the first vamp and the man who’d been with the woman, and another six on the stands across the field. One thing at a time, Rachel thought. Her dads had always told her that fighting was just like choreography -- take it piece by piece, don’t sacrifice speed for strength or vice versa, and always look fantastic while you do it.

Rachel tossed the box to one side, keeping only a stake in one hand and a sword in the other. “Alright, Rachel,” she whispered to herself as she squared off with the first vampire, in front of section A. “You have the audience you’ve always deserved. Don’t blank now.”

“Come to my blade, little girl,” the vampire growled.

“You sound like you got rejected from a Pirates of Penzance audition,” she said, smiling, eyes narrowed, then threw herself at him, stake-first. He leveled his sword at her, but she didn’t waver. He’d asked her to, after all.

He didn’t last long. His form was decidedly sloppy, and he didn’t have Rachel’s finesse and skill with both hands. He only had the one ‘blade,’ after all. She had two, and could use them with equal brilliance.

When he was dust sprinkling her Mary-Janes, she searched out Mercedes and Kurt with her eyes. “Get these people out of here!” she yelled, wiping her hair out of her face with her sword-arm. Ugh. Of all the days to leave her headband at home.

“Rachel, look out!” Kurt yelled.

She was bowled over by the next vampire, and they went flying in a heap, legs and arms and weapons tangled. As they smacked down, Rachel’s head bounced off the ground, and she let go of her sword with weak fingers, groaning. It was echoed by the crowd in the stands, and Rachel took a -- admittedly disoriented and befuddled -- second to appreciate their response. For a second she reveled giddily in their support, but then the vampire was grabbing her by the hair and slamming her head into the ground a second time, and Rachel forgot all about the crowd.

“Ow, ow, ow --” she grabbed the vampire’s hair, which was a striking and obviously dyed red, and yanked her back. “How do you like it, hmmm? Maybe next time you’ll think before going for the dirty shot!”

Rachel flipped vampire number two off of her and rolled to her knees, brushing herself off. The crowd near her cheered, and she turned to them with a smile. “Fellow Titans fans, while I appreciate your accolades, I assure you that I have been training for this moment all my life and am completely safe --”

“Fight now, brag later, Rachel!” Mercedes called, directing Rachel’s attention back to her target, who was picking herself up off the ground.

“Fine,” Rachel said, rolling her eyes. She threw a punch that landed solidly in the vampire’s solar plexus; the vibrations shook all the way up her arm. The vampire tried to kick her legs out from under her, but Rachel evaded her easily, grabbing her around the waist and dumping her onto the ground. Rachel followed, straddling the vamp around the waist and slamming her stake down with an incredibly satisfying thunk. That thunk, she thought as the vampire burst, was rather like the final trill at the end of a song -- the vibrant sound of success.

She didn’t have time to savor it, though, because the third and final vampire wrapped his huge, leather-clad arms around her ribcage and dragged her backwards, kicking and flailing awkwardly. He tightened his arms, squeezing her roughly, and Rachel would have sworn she heard her ribs creak. Her back was screaming, and although her legs were connecting with his shins he didn’t seem to care.

Rachel gasped weakly, and dug her nails into the forearms under her armpits. The vampire swore but didn’t let go. The world was flickering around the edges under the pressure on her lungs, and the crowd’s frightened yells were a humming blur in the background.

No, Rachel thought, tightening her fingers as well as she could around her remaining stake. She wasn’t going to die at the hands of a lackey. There was so much left to live for, and so many reasons not to be killed by, well, a lackey. That’d be incredibly embarrassing.

She dropped her head forward, feigning faintness, and when the arms slackened around her (to the accompaniment of the groans of the crowd, which were supremely gratifying even through the haze clouding her mind), she rammed her head back with as much force as she could master. It connected with the vampire’s face with a loud crunch, which she assumed was his nose, and the arms around her dropped away entirely as he jumped backwards, swearing like a sailor.

Rachel spun on the ball of her foot, rising up, striking out with her stake where she estimated his heart was through her blurred vision.

Judging by the way he kept moaning for a solid ten seconds after impact, she missed.

Rachel rubbed at her eyes until they cleared, gasping for breath, then looked at her handiwork and promptly frowned in disgust. The stake was stuck half-in to his chest in the dead center.

The vampire grimaced. “You try looking good with a piece of wood jammed into your chest, sweetcheeks,” he snarled, tugging ineffectually at the stake.

“Actually, I was expressing disappointment in my own aim,” Rachel said, putting her hands on her hips. “Even half-blind, I should be better than that.”

She shrugged, then snapped out a spinning-back-kick, sending him flying backwards. While he was winded and gasping on the ground, she grabbed the stake out of his chest and slammed it home. He exploded into dust with a final grimace, and she stood up, waving her stake in the air, yelling, “Perfect ten!”

With the way clear, Mercedes and Kurt began to make their way towards her, and they exited the stands to exchange exuberant high-fives with her. Kurt gave her a quick hug, then said, “There’s still five more across the field, never mind two brainwashed football teams and the Three Sisters of Bellevamp. Stay focused.”

“Right,” Rachel said, nodding. “Do you have my headband?”

“I do,” Mercedes said, pulling it out of her bag and settling it into Rachel’s hair. She gave her head a quick, fond, pat, then said, “Where do you need us, Rachel?”

“Get everyone out,” Rachel said, reluctantly. She’d loved having an audience, for once in her life having people see and appreciate what she had done for them every day since she’d turned fourteen, but she supposed their well-being was more important than her ego. “If I don’t manage to stop them, and that’s a big if, mind you, because I am obviously going to prevail over her just like I did over these four, then I want these people safe. Did you see their faces? The crowd’s or the vamps’, really, because they were both just fantastic --”

“Okay, we get it, you were awesome,” Mercedes said with a nervous giggle. “Now what exactly is Quinn going to do with these people if we don’t get them out? Maybe we could use their help, overtake all the vamps with an army of angry Titans fans while you go after Quinn!”

“No, that’s no good,” Rachel said urgently. She switched her gaze back and forth between Mercedes and Kurt and back again, begging them to understand. “If the Master comes back, she’ll be weak. That’s why Quinn is doing this tonight. She needs the crowd. Sue needs to feed.”

”Oh god,” Kurt said. He cast his gaze back over the crowd. These people had been awful to him, absolutely awful, and for a moment Rachel wondered what he’d do. Then he nodded decisively, and said, “We’ll have to smash the gates or something. Bunch of burly football fans, shouldn’t be a problem, right?” He paused. “Do you - do you need help? I mean, can I help?”

“I appreciate the offer, Kurt, but these people are the priority,” Rachel said. She refrained from mentioning that, despite Kurt’s talents, he’d probably just be in her way. That wasn’t cruelty; that was fact.

“We’ll get them out, Rachel,” Mercedes said, already turning back to the crowd. “Go work.”

Rachel nodded. She squeezed Kurt’s hand once as Mercedes started to yell at the crowd, directing them to head for the exit single-file and to assist anyone who needed it, then ran for her box. She grabbed an axe for herself, and tucked one more stake into her waistband. Finally, she kicked the box, and the rest of the weapons, towards Kurt, and after one last look, turned to face the field.

She had two options: make it past the army of football players and the three faux-cheerleaders in the center to kill the six vamps holding the rest of the crowd captive, or break Santana’s hold on the players and get them to free the crowd.

In the center, Quinn was setting up candles in a circle around the Master’s bones, oblivious or uncaring of the way Rachel was tearing through her lackeys, while Santana flipped through an old tome and Brittany danced en pointe around the circle, sprinkling salt. Rachel’s heart nearly stopped. It looked like her decision was made for her; they were obviously almost ready to do the ritual. Rachel was running out of time. If Sue were brought back, not only would the crowd that remained be killed, the entire town would be doomed. Sue Sylvester had something of an obsession with revenge, to put it simply.

Rachel rolled her shoulders twice, working out the kinks, then straightened her back and strode for the center.

“Quinn!” she called.

Quinn glanced up, and saw who it was. She rolled her eyes. Then she noticed the stands emptying, and her fist clenched so tight that she broke a particularly thin candle in two. “That doesn’t change anything, Slayer,” she said, through what Rachel noticed had to be extremely clenched teeth, given the tic in her jaw. Quinn forced a smile, and continued, “In case it escaped your notice, I still have half left. That’s enough to last the Master until we hit the town, I think.”

Rachel scoffed. “Oh, please. Have you met Sue?”

Quinn scowled. “Brittany?”

With the tiniest of thuds, Brittany came out of her perfect pointe into a demi-pliée, executing a half turn that left her facing Rachel. “Your elbow is a weapon of righteousness,” she said. “It hurt.”

“That’s -- okay...” Rachel said, frowning bemusedly, but all thought slipped away when Brittany came racing at her, moving faster than anyone should be able to. In an instant Brittany was in front of her, striking out lightning quick in a kick that sent Rachel tumbling, losing the axe in an instant.

She had to stop dropping things. It was getting embarrassing. In her defense, it was an incredible kick, Rachel thought.

“The fairies made me fast,” Brittany explained to Rachel’s impressed stare, then she swung her fist down onto Rachel’s collarbone, knocking her down despite Rachel’s too-slow attempt to block her. “They come to me at night sometimes and leave teeth. I don’t really get it, but if it makes them happy then I’m cool with it.”

“What?” Rachel asked, holding her shoulder with one hand and pushing herself up with the other.

“Nothing,” Brittany said, planting a foot solidly into Rachel’s stomach and pressing down with her heel. “You wouldn’t understand.”

Rachel grabbed at Brittany’s other ankle, pulling her down with a crash, and rolled away, coughing. Her stomach ached hollowly, but she pushed herself up once again. On your feet, Rachel, she thought, struggling to control her breathing. Be like Lea Salonga. Be like Patti. Hold it together. Work that diaphragm of steel!

Suddenly, Brittany was there, fists slamming into Rachel’s back and prompting another spell of coughing. She fell forward, her face pressing against the cool grass. From down there, she could see what was left of the crowd, the people still held prisoner. Held prisoner like puppies in puppy farms, or like poor baby cows getting ready to become veal. Rachel’s eyes stung.

Brittany sighed in disappointment, then got to her knees behind her, pressing down along the length of her back. “Don’t give up yet, Rachel,” Brittany said into Rachel’s neck. “You’re the hero. It’s your name on the billboard. I can, like, see it. You’re not allowed to give up, that’s not how it goes.”

“What?” Rachel said, going limp.

“... What what?” Brittany said. Her voice sounded genuinely confused. Rachel twisted her neck to look Brittany in the face, but her eyes were open and guileless.

“What do you mean, what what? You just said --” Rachel huffed in irritation, and that irritation gave her the strength to buck Brittany off. Rachel got to her feet as quick as she could, and raced over to where Brittany lay, face down, giggling into the ground. “You are so incomprehensible,” Rachel said, shaking her head in helpless frustration.

“Sticks and stones,” Brittany sing-songed.

Rachel ignored that, grabbing Brittany by her ponytail and pulling her up. She wrapped her arms awkwardly around her, struggling to compensate for the large height difference and struggling even harder not to compare it to the one between her and Finn. Hugging Finn wasn’t that awkward, was it? She shoved those thoughts away forcefully, pulling her stake out of her belt to hover it over Brittany’s heart.

“Santana!” Rachel stage-whispered.

Quinn didn’t seem to notice, but Santana looked up from her book, and her eyes narrowed. She rose to her feet and sauntered casually over, glancing over her shoulder to Quinn every few steps to make sure she wasn’t looking. Santana seemed fully aware that if Quinn were to be alerted to the situation, Rachel would dust Brittany right then and there. “You want to leave her the hell alone, Slayer, or I’mma go all Lima Heights on you, phallic piece of wood be damned,” Santana said as soon as she was close enough.

Rachel frowned in confusion, her gaze flashing back and forth between Santana, who glared at her menacingly, and Quinn, whose back was turned to them and whose attention was focused downwards at the bones of her sire.

“Oh yeah,” Santana purred, playing a large knife between her fingers. “I’m from around these parts, didn’t you know? I’m just like you. Lima trash. Before I met Brittany and Quinn, I wasn’t going anywhere. She got me out of here, so if you know what’s good for you, you won’t touch her.”

“Big talk, considering I’m the one holding all the cards right now, Santana,” Rachel challenged, wiggling the stake over Brittany’s heart. She frowned. “Now I don’t want to hurt Brittany, I mean, any more than I want to hurt any vampire, which is kind of a lot, but -- I mean to say it’s not personal. But I can make it personal if I have to. Now, look, I’m not asking for much. Just - just drop the thrall, and leave. We can do this peacefully, Santana.”

Santana glanced back at Quinn, then to Brittany, obviously torn. She crossed her arms, scowling and hunching her shoulders a little, and made to turn back to Quinn.

“Santana,” Rachel said, desperately, “Santana, don’t let her make you a coward! That’s what you are, with her. Doesn’t Brittany deserve better?”

Santana turned back to her, deadly slow. “What did you say to me?”

“I said you’re a coward,” Rachel said. She swallowed nervously. “You’re a coward, and if you choose to do this ritual instead of saving Brittany then you’re an idiot too,” she declared, forcing on a confident front. Everything hinged on Santana.

Santana stalked toward Rachel, bitchy scowl blistering in its loathing. Rachel tilted her chin up defiantly, and dug the stake in a tiny bit, bringing Santana to a screeching halt.

“Make the right choice, Santana,” Rachel said.

“You sound like a broken record,” Santana said, her voice harsh to cover the weakness underneath. “Or like one of those anti-drug commercials. Or like a mosquito, or a leaf blower, or a rake on pavement or a dwarf on helium or an infinite number of other annoying things. Don’t you ever shut up?”

“Not really,” Rachel admitted. “Some people might consider it a character flaw, but I think it works to my advantage more often than not. And it’ll come in useful in interviews with the press once my inevitable fame begins, too.” She cleared her throat. “But we’re not talking about me here. We’re talking about you.”

“Cut the therapist crap, Slayer --”

“I’m not trying to be your therapist, Santana,” Rachel said, rolling her eyes. “I’m sure your issues are too numerous and insidious and deeply-rooted for me to work through. Congratulations, you’re a bit crazy.”

“Then what?” Santana said, propping her hands onto her hips. Rachel noticed the way her feet shifted nervously on the ground. Santana’s shoulders were still hunched defensively. Softening her tone, Rachel said, “I just -- I don’t want anyone to die tonight, Santana. Weirdly enough, that includes you and Brittany and Quinn. I don’t understand it, either,” she said with a quiet laugh when Santana raised an eyebrow.

Santana stared at her for a long time, unreadable. Then she cast a nervous look over her shoulder, and said, “Fine. Hand over Brittany and we’ll get out of your hair.”

“You’ll stop your thrall?”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Santana said.

Rachel sagged with relief. Or, well, she would have, if she didn’t have perfect posture and also a natural inclination to look her best in front of an audience or an enemy.

“You are one weird-ass dumpling, Slayer,” Santana said incredulously.

“You’d be surprised how often I get that,” Rachel said. “I am.”

Santana snickered meanly. “Yeah, whatever makes you feel better about yourself.”

Rachel shrugged. Brittany slipped out of her slack grip, and pressed a dry kiss to Rachel’s cheek. “Be seeing you,” Brittany said, quietly, into her cheek. She jogged to Santana, who took her hand, then turned to Rachel with an unreadable look. “Go easy on Q,” she mumbled, scowling.

Then Brittany and Santana were off and running for the gate.

Quinn looked up, finally, when the football players around her began to stir. Rachel watched as Quinn scanned the area, watched the tightening around her eyes as she noticed Brittany and Santana’s departure. Watched her stare down Sam Evans, the first one to recover, and wave a hand at him. “Don’t even try it,” Quinn said, her eyes hard and angry, and Sam seemed to wilt under his surfer haircut, even in his bulky uniform.

The other players were starting to come to themselves, muttering bemusedly and wondering what had happened to the game. When they noticed Quinn, in her bloody uniform, kneeling over the dusty bones of her sire, they started to back up slowly. Quinn smiled thinly, and Rachel swallowed. “Sam,” she said quietly, “get the others, and get the crowd out of here.”

“What about those, uh, v-vampires?” Sam stuttered, staring with wide eyes over at the six vamps still guarding the crowd across the field.

Rachel blinked. “V- what?”

“Because, I mean, we’re pretty crap at football. I’m not sure we’ll be much better at this slaying thing,” Sam explained earnestly.

“Who -- who said anything about vampires?” Rachel said with an awkward laugh. She smiled as brightly as possible. Judging by the nervous look Sam sent her and the way Quinn rolled her eyes, it backfired.

“Mercedes told me,” Sam said, fiddling with the shovel and not meeting her eyes. “Is that cool? I mean, she needed someone to hide the weapons, and I was that someone, and she just -- yeah. That’s it.”

Rachel tilted her head in disbelief, gaping a little -- okay, maybe a lot. But she shook herself out of it. “Whatever, okay, I honestly -- this night can’t get any stranger than it already is. Just, just get the crowd out, okay? You have two teams of big, burly football men. I’m sure between you there’s enough skill, or at the very least, muscle, to take out six vampires.”

Sam nodded, “Right. Yes. Okay.”

He turned to call instructions to the teams. Quinn watched in silence. As the teams started to head out, Quinn said, in a voice that was pure sugar, “Leave the shovel, please.”

Sam turned with an easy smile, dropping the shovel without a second thought. Then he realized what he’d done, and with a look of horror reached back to grab it, but Quinn was up in his face, all poison smiles and dark eyes, trailing her fingers down his throat. “I said leave it,” she said, and he did.

Side by side, separated by only a few feet, Rachel and Quinn watched the teams take down Quinn’s lackeys. “You’re not going to help them?”

“They’re just a bunch of nobodies, even if they are vamps,” Quinn said, voice cold. “Bunch of Lima nobodies.”

“You’re losing your blood source,” Rachel pointed out. She wasn’t sure why she was arguing, but -- well, she didn’t understand, she didn’t understand what was going on. Maybe she was strange for a Slayer, like Santana said, but she clearly had nothing on Quinn. Vampires were simple. Blood, sex, violence, it came to them easily and it was all they cared about. They didn’t let a couple hundred people leave without a fight. The fight was half the fun, actually.

“I guess I’ll just take my sire sightseeing, then,” Quinn said. Her voice was totally neutral.

They watched in silence as the players overwhelmed the vampires, taking a few scrapes but no real damage. The vamps slunk off with their tails between their legs, while the players led the crowd out to the gates. Not one person looked back. It was clear that the audience was performing that neat little trick everyone in Lima had perfected, forgetting the events of the night. Well, the specifics, at least. In the morning, everyone would agree that, oh, a gang of stoned teenagers pulled a dangerous and ill-advised prank, with no ill consequences. Or maybe a rival show choir decided to pull some intimidation tactics during the football game. And everyone would certainly agree that the McKinley Titans lost.

At the last moment, Sam turned to look at Rachel, concern evident in his face. She waved at him weakly, giving him her best “I am the heroine of this story and I will prevail despite any and all hardships so I don’t need you here” smile. It worked; he left, closing the gate behind him.

And then there were two.

The air was still and quiet once again. Rachel scanned the field, taking in the trash abandoned on the field, left behind in the rush to exit, and off to her left the gaping pit where Sue Sylvester had been buried beneath layers of charms and precautions. The stands were empty, save for a few forgotten jackets and foamy fingers. In front of her, calling to her, was the circle, and in it Sue’s bones.

Rachel drew herself up with a breath. She turned to Quinn, and with a nervous laugh said, “Well, this seems a little anticlimactic.”

Quinn gave her a small, nasty smile. “What? You won’t perform without a crowd?”

“No! I -- I just mean...” Rachel paused, trying to put the feeling into words. All she could think of was what she’d said to Santana: I don’t want anyone to die. “This all feels so unnecessary. I mean. Why are we doing this?”

“I thought it was obvious,” Quinn said, turning slightly to glance at Rachel. “I want my sire back. You want her to stay in the ground. That’s a pretty big difference of opinion, Slayer.”

“But that’s what I mean! Why?” Rachel pressed. “Why do you want her back? I admit, I probably didn’t know the Master as well as you did, and to be quite frank I’m grateful for that because she was a cruel, hateful woman with a talent for making others feel bad about themselves --”

Quinn interrupted. “That’s my sire you’re talking about, so watch your freaking mouth, stubbles.”

“You don’t need her, Quinn,” Rachel said, staring up at Quinn desperately. She wasn’t sure why, but -- she didn’t want this. She didn’t want this fight. There was something about Quinn that was so human, despite it all. There was a, a depth or something. She was like the Phantom, Rachel thought. Quinn did these terrible things, but there was some kind of internal conflict constantly brewing under the surface. Did that make Rachel Christine? She did practice the vocal runs at the end of ‘Think of Me’ during the last five minutes of her daily shower solo, so the metaphor fit nicely, in her mind.

Quinn scowled, and all thoughts of how Quinn might look in a half-mask fled Rachel. “You don’t know me, Slayer. You don’t know my sire. And I’m not listening to you.”

“Quinn --” Rachel tried, but Quinn swung the shovel at neck-level, and Rachel was too busy ducking to continue talking.

Well, fine. Rachel had done her very best to reach out to Quinn. If Quinn wasn’t going to give in and let Rachel save her, then they would fight. Fine. Rachel dropped to the ground as Quinn swung the shovel again, rolling to her left until her fingers closed around the shaft of her axe. Then she was jumping to her feet, flipping it nervously in one hand as she faced Quinn fully armed.

Quinn stepped right, and Rachel adjusted herself with a step to her own right. They circled each other slowly. Rachel watched warily, eyes narrowed, as Quinn spun the shovel in lazy circles. The slow movement was belied by the tension in her shoulders and in her jaw.

Rachel waited, and watched, still keeping up to Quinn step for step.

When Quinn swung again, a solid two-handed slash aimed at Rachel’s ribs, a tic in her jaw gave it away, and Rachel was already moving forward, into Quinn’s zone, before the swing even began. She lifted her two-headed axe, aiming downwards at Quinn’s collarbone with vicious force. Quinn got the shovel up in time, recovering from her previous swing, but Rachel was already coming in with a harsh kick to Quinn’s stomach, and she went tumbling back.

Quinn recovered quickly, and Rachel held her ground, axe at the ready, as Quinn came in again, this time holding the shovel with her hands spread widely. Once she was within range, Quinn attacked, a series of short-range smacks raining down on Rachel from both the hard handle and the sharp head of the shovel. Rachel buckled under the pressure, trying to step away, but Quinn followed. So close, Rachel could feel Quinn’s harsh breath tickle her skin even as she saw it misting the cool air, and she could see every drop of sweat building on Quinn’s brow, clinging to her hair. It was too close to make good use of her axe, and after a few failed attempts to block Quinn’s blows with it, Rachel tossed it aside, drawing her stake once again from her belt.

Quinn withdrew once the stake was in play, pulling back a few steps. Rachel took the chance to catch her breath, wincing as each inhale stretched her sore sides. Okay, Rachel, she told herself. Keep it together.

She raised her stake, intent on rushing in for take two, but looking at Quinn standing protectively between her and the Master’s bones, she faltered. She had to try one more time. “I know what it feels like to love someone, Quinn,” she said, keeping her stake raised but reaching one hand out in a gesture of peace. “To love someone so much your whole heart aches, and your head sings, and you’d do just about anything to keep them safe. I know what you’re feeling.”

Quinn scowled. “Would you shut up about your feelings? I don’t care, Slayer. No one cares, okay? God, you are so stupid.” There was a kind of brittle hardness in her eyes. Rachel thought she must have struck a nerve.

“I’m just trying to understand, Quinn,” she pressed, softly, hoping for more. She could break that hardness.

Quinn snarled, baring her teeth, and came at her with her weapon raised. “She -- is -- my -- sire,” she yelled between blows. One hit caught Rachel in the stomach, right where Brittany had got her earlier, and she went down, gasping. Quinn continued to rain blows down on her, harder and harder. Rachel curled into a ball to protect herself, covering her head with her arms, but she could still hear Quinn through it. “She raised me up from nothing, from being a nobody like you and all your stupid loser friends! She gave me my revenge! She made me who I am, and I owe her everything, and I hated her more than I have ever hated anybody in the end but she is my sire. There’s no way you can understand that,” Quinn said.

The blows halted, and Rachel unrolled herself, wiping at her eyes with one hand, her face screwed up in pain. When her vision cleared, she saw Quinn standing over her. The shovel was held loosely in one hand. Rachel tracked the slow path of a drop of her own blood down its silver head.

“How did you kill her?” Quinn asked. Her voice was flat and her eyes were full of a terrible wrath. Rachel wondered, for a brief second, if it was directed at Quinn herself almost as much as at Rachel.

A hacking cough bubbled up in Rachel’s throat, and she spat up a bit of blood. She stared at it dully, staining the sleeve of her sweater. Slowly, between shallow breaths, she said, “Sue killed me. She killed me. But I’m - I’m the best fighter in the world, Quinn. I’m the fastest, I’m the strongest, I’m the smartest, and I got that damn ring of hers off of her e-even as she was choking every last drop of air out of my body.”

Quinn was panting, a hungry look on her face. “And then?” she said. “You were dead. How - how -“

“I came back,” Rachel laughed, and a little more blood came up. She spat it carefully to the side to avoid further damage to her sweater. “There’s a kind of irony there reminiscent of the works of Sondheim or, or Shaw, don’t you think? I came back, and I killed her.”

Quinn laughed too, a low, ragged sound, and she sagged against the shovel. Rachel’s head bowed down to the ground under its own weight, and she had to struggle to raise it when Quinn began to speak.

“She told me -- she told me Slayers were strong,” Quinn said. Her face was unreadable. “I thought she was right, when I first met you. But now... you’re not. Just look at you. You really are nothing.” She tossed the shovel aside. “You’re not worth my time.”

Quinn turned her back on Rachel, apparently done with her. Rachel pressed a hand to her side, gasping, but her eyes were narrowed with anger and determination.

If there was one thing Rachel knew, it was that she was not nothing. She might not have known how to talk to strangers, or, hell, even people she’d known for years, without making them back away with an awkward laugh, and she might have broken all the speakers in her house the previous week playing a mashed-recording of her own vocals with Aaron Tveit’s at real-life-concert volume, but those were just one-off mistakes. She was, in the long run and where it counted, better than that, and she was better than this. Better than Quinn could possibly know.

With that thought, she began to haul herself up, biceps screaming as she pushed herself up to a kneeling position. From there, it was just a matter of getting her feet under herself properly and getting back into the fight. Easier said than done, though; she’d taken a number of hits to her legs while Quinn had been taking her anger out on her, and they ached almost as much as her ribs did with every slow movement as she dragged herself to her feet.

Finally, Rachel was upright, standing on admittedly shaky legs, but standing nonetheless -- which was really something of an achievement, given the circumstances, and Rachel would’ve patted herself on the back if she’d had a moment but now really wasn’t the best time. She adjusted the hem of her sweater slowly, then fixed her headband, which had gone lopsided in the beating.

Rachel took a single, deep breath, deep enough to make her sore ribs ache even more, then threw herself at Quinn.

They hit the ground heavily, Quinn taking the brunt of the impact with a groan of pain. Before she could recover, Rachel had her, pinning Quinn’s thighs with her knees and her hands above her head with one of her own hands. Rachel’s other hand wound itself into Quinn’s ponytail, gripping the silky strands tightly then slamming Quinn’s head into the ground again, once, twice, three times.

Rachel was a firm believer in what other people called “overkill.” Really, though, she just liked to do her job well. A job well done was a job that didn’t need repeating, and repetition was only acceptable if it was for an encore.

Rachel slammed her knee into Quinn’s stomach with all the force she could muster, then got to her feet, leaving the vampire gasping and disoriented on the ground. She took a few cautionary steps backwards, but Quinn didn’t move, or even seem to notice really. Perhaps Rachel had used a little more force than was necessary on the head-slams.

The harsh sound of her own panting breath, and Quinn’s low whimpers, filled Rachel’s ears, but they faded to a dull thrum as she staggered over to the shovel Quinn had abandoned. She was beaten, bruised, and she was fairly sure her lip was bleeding, although she’d stopped coughing up blood, thank goodness -- but none of that mattered. Nothing mattered but the solid weight of the shovel in her hand and the bones staring at her defiantly, only a few feet away.

Slowly, so slowly, Rachel entered the circle.

They were just bones. Just chalky old bones. A vampire as old as Sue -- she was too powerful to dust. She left behind something of herself, so others could bring her back. Undo Rachel’s work. Force her to face Sue again, to repeat herself. Bring that hand back around her neck, tightening, tightening. Kill her again.

It’d be a cold day in hell before Rachel allowed that to happen.

She lifted the shovel, gripping it with both hands like a baseball bat. Vaguely, as if from a distance, she recalled the previous summer, Tina teaching her and Mercedes how to play softball because she was too shy to join the local league alone.

Behind her, Quinn had pulled herself together enough to say, in a voice that shook weakly, “Slayer, don’t you even think about --”

Rachel swung. The shovel cut cleanly through the air, and smashed through the skull, shattering it.

A cloud of dust went up. Rachel liked that a lot. She could dust the Master, after all.

“Slayer --”

She swung again.

“Stop it, stop it, stop it!” Quinn yelled. She sounded like she was crying. “Sla-- Rachel! Rachel, stop it, stop it --”

Again. Again. Harder and harder, until the shovel was a metallic blur in her hands and dust covered her knee socks thickly, sticking to the blood and gore. Until the bones were all gone, and then she stopped, panting for breath. Her eyes stung, but whether it was from the dust or from the emotional turmoil bubbling beneath the surface within her in true heroine fashion, Rachel couldn’t say.

A shuffling sound came from behind her. Leaning heavily on the shovel handle, Rachel turned to face Quinn, who was getting to her feet with a grimace of pain. Her face was wet with tears that shone dully in the bright lights that surrounded the football field. There was a murderous look in her eyes, and Rachel winced. “If you’re going to try to kill me,” she said, quietly, “please just... I understand if you want to try and make it as violent as possible, but please, avoid my nose. Whether I survive the attempt or not, it wouldn’t do to ruin my most recognizable and distinguishing feature.”

Quinn shook her head wordlessly. Seeing that no response was forthcoming, Rachel continued. “But -- you don’t have to, Quinn. It’s over now. There’s nothing left for you in Lima now, you can take Santana and Brittany and you can all leave us in peace. We don’t have to fight, Quinn.”

“It’s not over, Slayer,” Quinn said, her voice hoarse and her eyes burning as they glared narrowly at Rachel. “Next time, things will be different.” Then she turned and limped off the field.

Rachel considered following her, finishing the job once and for all and ridding the world of Quinn. She’d killed those Cheerios. She and Santana and Brittany would have killed more than a hundred people that night if she hadn’t stopped them. They deserved to be dust. But Rachel couldn’t stop thinking of the way Quinn had cried, of her desperation to bring back her mentor, of the numbness in her eyes after Santana and Brittany ditched her.

Her dads had always told her she had too soft a heart for this job. They said it like a compliment, and Rachel took pride in that fact. For once she wondered if maybe it would have consequences, but she couldn’t bring herself to chase Quinn down. Quinn was -- Quinn and Santana and Brittany, they were too human to slay.

Rachel watched Quinn’s back disappear into the night, clutching the handle of the shovel so tightly her knuckles went white. The moment Quinn was gone her lower lip trembled, weakened. Tears stung at the corners of her eyes. Rachel wiped them away with a shaking hand that was sprinkled in a light layer of dust.

Quinn was wrong. It was over.

(Continued here.)