♪breathe♪

♪katy v. gaga♪

will and cass walked to the choir room, stopping at the door, "you sure you're ready to come back?"

cass looked into the room, smiling faintly when she saw her friends, "as ready as i'll ever be."

"you know no one will hold it against you if you took more time," will reassured her, rubbing her shoulder comfortingly.

cass shook herself out of her memories of the friend she just lost, "no, i just want to go back to normal."

will nods curtly before the pair bound into the room excitedly, "all right, big week, guys.gather round.i have here in my hand... drumroll, please... a secret list of the show choirs that we will be in competition with at nationals in six weeks. okay, let's see what we've got. the rust-belters from pittsburgh, the thunder showcats from gainesville and finally, from fort wayne, throat explosion."

tina falls to her knees crying, "no! why, god?!"

"what? throat explosion?"

blaine looked to jake ashamed of him, "that's a joke, right? they're the new supergroup the show choir underground's been buzzing about. their budgets for costume, makeup, hair alone are astronomical. you guys have read that malcolm gladwell book, outliers, right? so, gladwell says you can't possibly master anything unless you've spent 10,000 hours practicing it. so students can't even join without proving they've logged in 10,000 hours of show choir rehearsal. they don't even go to class. they just perform, every minute of every day. they live their art. they know no boundaries, constantly pushing the envelope, living and performing on the edge. they're like mini lady gagas."

"we're so screwed..." tina groans, slamming her forehead against the piano. "they're not like vocal adrenaline, unfeeling borg robots. they're total outsiders and misfits, which used to be our niche. we can't compete with throat explosion anymore at that level because we lost our biggest gaga when kurt graduated last year."

logan visibly agreed with tina, pointing to his sister, "hell we lost mercedes and cass and that combo was badass."

"wow am i really a gaga?" the aforementioned college freshman asked, looking to her friends and earning a overwhelming amounts of agreeing heads including her father. "gross."

tina waved her arms, almost hitting logan and marley in the faces, "look around, we're a room full of, like, katy perrys now."

"oh, you best check your spectrum, queen t, because orange is the new black, and unique is the new gaga," unique corrects, earning a high five from cass as she crossed the room.

tina considered it a second, realizing she was right, "well, not marley... she's a katy. so is sam and blaine."

"i'm a katy and i'm proud of it."

will laughed at blaine, seeing an opportunity, "the truth is, tina, we're a potent mix of katys and gagas in here. but it's not a liability... it's the way we're gonna beat throat explosion. some of us in here are, you know, ambi-edge."

"ambi-edge?" artie repeated,  "you just made that up."

will ignored artie's accusation, "some of us are more, you know, wholesome, innocent, romantic, all-american girl-and boy-next-door types. who in here would describe themselves as a gaga?"

sam gasped at the hand that went up, "really logan?"

"have you met my sister," he laughed motioning to her. "i may act like i'm different than her but we're quite similar."

will laughed at the exchange, "okay, great. and the rest of you are katys?"

ryder wasn't sold, "is there a third option?"