Picture perfect - Book 1 - Q.F.

Vitamin D

A/N: This one is a bit shorter and I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it, but Throwdown is coming today too and I can't wait for you to read it! Anyway... Let me know your thoughts on the story so far!

Mr. Schue had realized that, after telling his kids what the competition for Sectionals would be, they had gotten a bit... Complacent. So, to try and get them all fired up again, he decided to shake things up a bit. And he did it in the best way he knew how.

"Competition." He said, as he pinned a few pictures of some of the best competitions examples he could think of. "Every one of these people or elements was a champion in their own right. But they used competing with each other to make themselves even better."

"I don't understand how lightning is in competition with an above-ground swimming pool." Kurt commented, as Piper tilted her head to the side a bit with her arms crossed over her chest.

"Just go with it." Mr. Schue said. "You guys have become complacent. You were great at the Invitational, but you got to up your game if you want to get through Sectionals. Okay, split up. Guys on the left side, girls on the right side. Let's go, come on."

And, doing as they were told, the girls moved to the right side of the class. Smiling when she saw Kurt approaching their side, Piper's happiness was quickly cut short when Mr. Schue shook his head.

"Kurt." He called, as the boy sighed, sending Piper and Mercedes a look before, begrudgingly, moving to the boys' side. "Here's the deal. Two teams. Boys versus girls. One week from today, you will each perform a mash-up of your choice."

"What's a mash-up?" Puck asked.

"A mash-up is when you take two songs and mash them together to make an even richer explosion of musical expression." Mr. Schue explained, clearly excited with his own mash-up idea. "Boys will perform on Tuesday, girls the next day. I want you guys to go all out, okay? Costumes, choreography. Whoever wins the competition gets to choose the number that we do for Sectionals."

"Wait, who's going to be the judge?" Rachel asked. "Your gender makes you biased."

"Ah...There is going to be a celebrity judge." Mr. Schue smirked as Piper frowned, slightly amused.

"Wh-who?" Tina asked.

"Oh, you're going to have to show up to find out."

At that, everyone smiled, but before Piper could even do anything else, Mercedes had already grabbed her by the arm as she tugged her friend out of the room.

"We got this in the bag." She said, as the rest of the girls followed them closely.

"Totally." Rachel agreed. "I'm going to start storyboarding our choreography tonight."

***

Piper was sitting by herself in the dance room, leaning against a wall as she made sure no one was seeing the drawing she had open in her sketchbook. Yes, it was another picture of Quinn Fabray and, yes, she had been kind of hoping to see the girl that day to try and get the tone of her skin exactly right when she painted her picture this time, but, for some reason, Quinn hadn't showed up to the meeting Rachel had set up that afternoon.

"Okay, girls, we need to get started." Rachel said, as soon as she stepped foot inside just as the clock hit three o'clock.

Completely uninterested, Santana rolled her eyes as she stretched with Brittany by the bars.

"We're getting warmed up." She spat.

"Where's Quinn?" Rachel asked, as she looked around the room, choosing to ignore Santana's jab.