Dysfunctional ~ F.Hargreeves

48} The Harlan Problem

As soon as the bell dinged, all four of the elevator's passengers exited onto the ground floor.
"Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa," Diego told Klaus, "Dude. Dude, slow down."
"Yeah," Jenna agreed, "You were dead, like, three minutes ago. Like really fucking dead, so-"
"Well, I'm back now," Klaus wobbled about, "Apparently, it's, like, a thing I do. Who knew, right? And look, look, look," He opened his shirt to show his healing wound, "It's... it's already healing."
"What would happen if we were to cut off your head?" Stan looked at his uncle with crazy eyes, "Would it grow two of you?"
"Stan," Jenna gave him a stern look, then turned to Klaus with a curious eyebrow raised, "Would it?"
Klaus pushed past all of them and went to the bar, where the other three followed.

"Give me that," Klaus walked behind the bar where Five was and snatched a drink.
"What happened to you?" Five asked.
"Oh, just a speargun to the chest," Klaus shrugged, "No big deal."
"Why are you listening to your body disposing music?" Five questioned Jenna.
She simply turned off her Walkman and ignored his question.
"What'd we miss?" Diego asked Lila.
"The universe is ending," She summed up, "And we're all going to die."
Jenna reached over the bar and willingly grabbed onto Five as another Kugel wave passed through the hotel, destroying some of the other guests in the process.
"They're starting to hurt me," Jenna told him, "It's messing with my powers and melding with them."
"What the hell was that?" Diego questioned.
"That was a Kugel wave," Jenna explained, "They're getting worse and stronger. I can feel it throughout my entire body."

"How long do we have?" Luther asked for the group.
"At this rate of escalation," Five thought aloud, "If you factor in-"
"How long, Five!?" Luther snapped.
"Four, maybe five days before the rest of existence is blitzed," He poked his tongue against the inside of his cheek.
Jenna noticed Allison wander off having what appeared to be a panic attack. Before she could follow her, Luther grumbled, "We should've given them Harlan."
"Luther," Viktor looked at him sternly.
"What about Harlan?" Jenna asked them, "Since when is he in the equation?"
"The Sparrows said if we turned him over, we could end the fighting," Luther explained, "And then work together to save the world. But if we didn't-"
"But we tried to make peace," Viktor pointed out, "Okay, and then the step-siblings from hell attacked, kidnapped you, and they tried to kill us. I mean, come on. We can't trust them. Working together would be like trying to defuse a bomb by pouring gas on it. It's only gonna make things burn down faster."

"But don't we need the big bad glow-y thing in their basement?" Klaus slurred.
"Klaus," Five slowly turned to him, "Do you know where the Kugelblitz is?"
"Oh, yeah," He poured himself another drink, "I saw it. When I went to visit Dad. It's in the old storage room where Mom used to keep all her luggage."
"Why didn't you tell anyone!?" Diego exclaimed.
"I did," He defended, "I told you!"
"You say stupid shit all the time!" Diego pointed out.
"Of course it would appear in the same place we did," Jenna buried her head in her hands and tried to drown out all of the commotion around her. Everything felt like it was too much, and her pregnancy hormones sure as hell weren't helping her.

Five lightly grabbed her arm and motioned for her to follow him. She moved, begrudgingly, and followed.
"Stop covering for him," She heard Luther tell Viktor.
"Covering for what?" Five questioned as he wandered off with Jenna, "What's going on?"
After a moment of silence, Viktor looked at Luther, "He didn't mean to hurt anyone."
"Really?" Luther pointed to Viktor's face, "You mean when he did this?"
Stan winced looking at it, "Ow!"
"Wait, Harlan did that?" Five's eyes widened.
"I can end him if you want," Jenna offered.
"Already on it," Diego muttered absentmindedly.
"Look," Viktor sighed, sounding worn down, "I know how it looks, but Harlan didn't ask for this. If we hadn't gone back to 1963, if I hadn't have saved him-"
"He killed Jayme and Alphonso, not you," Luther shook his head, "He's the reason we're in this mess, and he's our only way out of it."
"Luther's right," Five agreed, "If we're gonna have an iota chance of getting out of this alive, we need access to the Kugelblitz."