Of course JBI would be following Piper around as soon as he caught sight of her during their first day at school. And of course he'd be asking the most inappropriate questions ever in the most uncomfortable way possible.

"Have you locked lips with any other girl this summer?" He asked, as Piper groaned loudly and rolled her eyes, keeping her books clutched tightly to her chest as she walked down the hallways trying to lose JBI and his stupid camera man. "Is it true you spent your whole summer locked away in a madhouse because you couldn't stop throwing up everything you ate?"

At that, Piper frowned, wondering how in the hell JBI even knew any of that. Sure, during summer, after a particular pool party in Kurt's house with him and Mercedes, Piper started to feel a bit self-conscious in her body again and she had slipped into some bad eating habits again. Sure, at some point she had even started to throw up after every meal and, sure, she ended up in the hospital in mid-July. So, sure, she had gone to a clinic to try and get better and she had spent the next four weeks there, but she was better now. She was eating properly again and she hadn't thrown up — or even felt the urge to — in days. She wasn't a hundred percent happy with her body still, but Kurt and Mercedes had taken upon themselves to keep an eye on her this year, after the scare Piper had given them that summer.

Still, Piper had no idea how JBI even knew what had gone down with her since her and her dad had decided to keep this whole thing under wraps. Clearly, it hadn't worked and, if JBI knew, soon, the whole school would know too.

"Leave me alone, JBI." Piper scoffed, as JBI gasped, turning to his camera for a second.

"No denial!" He said, as Piper rolled her eyes.

"Just go away!"

"One last question..." JBI called, still struggling to keep up with Piper as the girl groaned. "Is it also true you're suffering from a crippling depression because you're not over Miss Fabray?"

Again, Piper hesitated, having JBI rubbing salt in another wound. Still, she kept on walking, trying not to give him too much of a reaction.

"Screw you, Jacob..." She mumbled.

"Another dubious answer!" He said. "Is it true you and Miss Fabray haven't spoken much since the birth of her bastard baby?"

Rolling her eyes, Piper breathed out in relief when she noticed Kurt standing at the end of the corridor. Jogging a bit to catch up with him, Piper tried to ignore JBI's inquires about Quinn Fabray as he ran after her because, in all honesty, no... Piper hadn't talked much — or, at all — to Quinn since the end of last term, but with her own problems with her eating disorder and Quinn trying to get back in her game, the two of them just hadn't had the time. It didn't mean anything... Right?

Snapping out of her thoughts when she finally reached Kurt, Piper grabbed him by the arm and sent him an apologetic smile when Kurt noticed JBI approaching the two of them as well.

"Save me, Kurt." Piper pleaded, as Kurt scoffed.

"You're lucky I love you." He said, tugging her forward as the two of them started to make their way down the hallway together. "Come on."

"When will you Glee Clubbers accept the fact that people hate you?" JBI asked, as he followed the duo.

"Kiss it, Jacob."

"And think you're nothing but a glorified karaoke club..."

"Go away, JBI." Piper spoke up as the boy continued talking. "Go away."

"Designed to make the inventors of AutoTune millions of dollars?"

"You know what, Jacob?" Kurt said, then, stopping in the middle of the hallway as he turned around to face Jacob.

At Kurt's abrupt stop, Piper stumbled back a bit, surprised, and sighed when she noticed the harsh glare Kurt was sending Jacob. She rolled her eyes then, half proud and half annoyed, knowing whatever it was that Kurt had in mind was not about to end well for either of them.

"It doesn't take much courage for people to park their cottage cheese behinds in their Barcaloungers and log on to the Internet and start tearing people down, does it?" He asked. "But you know what does take some courage? Standing up and singing about something. So here's a message for everyone that reads your blog. Next time, instead of posting an anonymous comment online, say what you have to say to our face."

And before Piper could even react, she gasped when she felt the so familiar chill of a slushy being thrown at her face.

"Welcome back, homos!" Azimio called as he laughed, walking away with Karofski as Piper and Kurt stood there, paralized for a second.

"I don't suppose there's any way you could just cut out that last part, is there?" Kurt asked JBI as the boy just shook his head.

As Jacob looked at Piper and Kurt, standing in front of them, he stepped forward, toward Piper, but before he could do anything else, Piper pushed him back, placing her hand over his face as she glared at Kurt.

"You just couldn't keep your mouth shut, could you?"

***

It was the first glee meeting of the year and Piper was already regretting coming at all.

"These are comments from Jacob Ben-Israel's most recent Glee Club blog." Mr. Schue said, as he read out from a paper in his hands. "Glee is a giant ball of suck."

"We get it, Mr. Shue. Everyone still hates us." Kurt said, as Piper scoffed, still about 90% sure her hair was still red from the slushy from earlier. "So what? So we're plankton on the high school food chain? Only difference now is that none of us really care."

"Kurt's right. We're a family." Mercedes was quick to agree. "They can bring it all they want. None of it is going to break us."

"Okay, I'm really happy that you guys have all bonded." Mr. Schue said. "The problem is that all of this negative stuff is keeping other students from auditioning."

"Good." Tina shrugged. "Why do we need new members?"

"Well, since Matt transferred, we don't have the numbers for competition, and if we want to go to Nationals, if we want to beat Vocal Adrenaline, we have to go from a small rebel force to a giant wall of sound."

"Yeah, Mr. Schuester's right, you guys." Rachel said, already taking the lead as she stood up to stand beside the teacher. "You didn't see Vocal Adrenaline at Regionals. They were epic. We're going to need more voices in order to beat them."

"Yeah." Finn agreed, standing up as well. "I'm with Rachel on this one."

"Gross." Brittany mumbled as Piper chuckled, actually surprised to see that Finn and Rachel had, in fact, lasted in a relationship all through summer.

"You're going to have to trust me on this, guys." Mr. Schue said, taking the word again. "Now, here's the plan. Nationals are in New York this year, and we are going. Now let's go out there and show the school how cool it's going to be, how cool we can be. If they're not going to come to us, let's go to them. They say we only sing show tunes and '80s pop. Let's show them how down we are. Let's give them the song of the year, New Directions style."

And, at that, everyone cheered, happy to finally be able to perform as a group again and all hoping that Mr. Schue's idea worked this time around and, with their performance, they could manage to get some more people interested in the glee club.

***

Apparently, Mr. Schue's idea hadn't worked because, no matter how much fun they all had had while performing Empire State of Mind at the yard the day before, no one had shown any interest in joining their glee club.

"Honestly, I can't believe it..." Piper said, as she laid across the top of the piano, letting her head hang upside down as her hair draped over the keys as Kurt and Mercedes sat at the bench, playing around for a bit. "It was a great performance."

"It was." Mercedes agreed. "I just don't think people want to join because we're all at the bottom of the pyramid."

"Yeah, and it sucks." Kurt sighed, pressing a key of the piano before turning to Mercedes as the girl looked him up and down. "What?"

"So, is that a men's sweater?" She asked.

"Fashion has no gender." Kurt said, as Piper hummed in agreement.

"Gender is just a social construct, so we can make of it what we want." She mumbled, causing both Kurt and Mercedes to laugh. "What? It's true."

Before any of them could say anything however, Rachel walked into the room.

"Ladies, we have a problem." She announced as Piper frowned, spinning around a bit so she was sitting properly atop of the piano. "There's a new student at this school named Sunshine who is a Filipino and is shorter than me. Which I didn't think was possible and is very unnerving."

At that, the three of them exchanged weirded out glances, not in the slightest ready to deal with Rachel's crazy this early in the year.

"Okay..." Mercedes stood up from her place. "So I'm gonna go now."

And following her lead, Kurt stood up as well and Piper jumped down to the floor, but before they could all walk out, Rachel spoke up.

"Wait! And... She has a remarkable voice." Rachel said, as she sighed, moving to stand behind Kurt and Mercedes as she threw an arm around each of their shoulders. "I'm just... I'm very worried. You know, not for myself, but for my lesser Glee Clubbers who don't get as many solos. Right?"

When Piper noticed Rachel's eyes on her, Piper scoffed.

"Excuse you?"

"So... I've paid a hundred dollars to Azimio and Karofsky to brutally slushy us in front of Sunshine's locker, terrifying her and ensuring she doesn't sign up." Rachel continued as the three best friends exchanged shocked looks again. Noticing their silence and hesitation, Rachel huffed. "Okay, so this is the part where you're supposed to be hugging me and thanking me."

"That's awful." Mercedes shook her head. "You're awful."

"But solos!" Rachel protested. "I mean..."

"Look, Rachel, Mercedes and I are about as self-involved as they come, but more than anything, we want to beat Vocal Adrenaline." Kurt said, as Mercedes nodded from beside him and Piper watched them all with crossed arms over her chest as she leaned against the piano, feeling as if she had nothing much to add to the conversation. "And if there's someone at the school that can help us do that, they're in."

Rachel looked at Piper and Mercedes then, but when she noticed how the two of them nodded at Kurt's words, she sighed.

"You know what? You're right. It's just...so like me to just be totally blinded by my concern for all of you." Rachel said as the other three kids exchanged unconvinced looks. "I'll go talk to Sunshine now and just let her know how truly welcome she really is."

And as Rachel walked out of the choir room, the trio stood back, widening their eyes at one another.

"What the hell just happened?" Mercedes asked, as Piper shrugged.

"Concern for all of us?" She scoffed. "The girl barely even knows my name."

"She's scared of losing solos." Kurt shrugged. "But if this Sunshine girl threatened Rachel, we need her in this team."

"Oh, I can already imagine the drama..." Piper sighed dramatically. "You four fighting for solos... I don't think I can handle it."

***

Apparently, Piper and Quinn not talking did mean something. After all, Quinn had had the time and the chance to go and talk to Piper but she hadn't. And sure, Piper could go and talk to her as well, but if they were to judge on the brand new Cheerios uniform Quinn was wearing and the fact that she had already gotten in a fight with Santana over her new post as captain this year, it was safe to say Quinn wouldn't want to talk to Piper anymore. Or, at least, not where other people could see them.

So, instead of going to Quinn, Piper decided to pull away, sitting with Mercedes as the two of them and the rest of the glee club sat in silence in the choir room, waiting for anyone to walk through that door to audition. That wasn't happening, though, and after about two hours of nothing, unsurprisingly, Rachel was the first one to speak up.

"Well, hate to break it to you, but it doesn't look like anyone's gonna be joining us, so I think we should just call it a day." She said, standing up from her chair as Piper frowned.

Rachel seemed far too happy with this situation than she should be, considering she had been the one to even urge everyone to start looking for new people. Exchanging a look with Mercedes, the two raised an eyebrow at each other. Well, that was weird...

"We said 3:00 to 5:00." Mr. Schue said, trying to keep everyone's spirits up, only to sigh when everyone started to gather their stuff to leave. "It's only 4:58."

"Just wait." Finn spoke up then. "My buddy Sam's gonna try out. He totally idolizes me."

At that, Piper scoffed and rolled her eyes, wrapping her arm around Mercedes' as the two of them started to leave.

"Oh, face it, Finn. You're no longer the quarterback." Kurt said. "You're not the Pied Piper anymore. No one's gonna follow you around thinking everything you do is cool."

"What about that Sunshine girl?" Mercedes said, frowning at Rachel when the girl walked up to her quickly. "I thought you said she could sing."

"I guess she didn't want to hang out with us losers." She laughed awkwardly and, again, Mercedes and Piper exchanged a look.

Yep, there was definitely something going on there.

***

So, Sunshine had miraculously auditioned, but literally, not a day after, the New Directions had received the news that she had suddenly and very suspiciously transferred to Carmel High, which meant that, not only did they not have Sunshine Corazon and her unbelievable voice with them anymore, now Vocal Adrenaline had her.

"As if they even needed her..." Piper mumbled as she sat with Mercedes and Kurt at the cafeteria during lunch as they discussed their missed opportunity of beating Vocal Adrenaline this year.

"Yeah, I heard they even bought her family a condo next to the school." Kurt said, as Piper frowned.

"Is that even legal?" She asked, and, before any of them could even respond, Tina spoke up as she, Artie and Mike made their way toward them and placed their trays of food down to sit with their friends.

"Not really." Tina said, as everyone turned to her with a frown. "But then again, neither is what Rachel did to Sunshine."

"The poor thing..." Mike mumbled, as Kurt, Mercedes and Piper all frowned a bit, confused. "I mean, if I were her, I'd jump at the first opportunity I got to get away from Rachel that I got."

"Hum... I'm sorry, I'm a bit lost." Mercedes said. "What exactly happened?"

"Oh, you haven't heard yet?" Tina asked, as Piper took another bite of her chicken, watching her friend as she leaned over closer to them so she could speak a bit lower. "She sent Sunshine to a crack house."

At that, Piper choked a bit, coughing hard as Kurt and Mercedes gasped. Artie was quick to offer Piper her bottle of water and she took a big sip of it, finally calming down a bit before sending Artie a grateful smile.

"She did what?" Kurt asked, as Mike nodded.

"It wasn't an active one, but she was so threatened by Sunshine that she lied to her about where we were holding auditions and sent the girl to a crack house instead." He explained as Piper gasped.

"Doesn't that pose some kind of crime? The girl could have died." Piper mumbled. "It feels very much illegal to me."

"Well, I don't know, all I know is that Mr. Schue told Rachel to fix it and she convinced Sunshine to audition, but then Vocal Adrenaline got word on her and convinced her to move schools." Tina said, as Mercedes scoffed.

"Not that it would've been too difficult..."

"And now, our best bet against Vocal Adrenaline turned out to be their biggest weapon against us." Artie mumbled.

"This is ridiculous..." Piper rolled her eyes. "Wasn't she the one so excited about getting new members?"

"She was clearly worried about losing all her solos to Sunshine." Kurt said.

"But how far can ambition go?"

"Well..." Mercedes said, sending a glare over Piper's shoulders to where Finn and Rachel were sitting at a table away from them, but looking at them all, very sheepishly. "Clearly this time it went too far."