corrupted categories

the hargreeves kids never understand their numbers, or why they had them,

but the numbers they got spoke volumes, they categorized them into the types of people they would become.

the odds were competitive, they were fierce, they were leaders, with the exception of vanya, but she was ordinary, they thought, so she didn't count.
they had the traits that made them stronger,
luther having his 'take leadership' response constantly at hand for whenever it's needed,
allison being manipulative, being able to get whatever she wanted, powers or not,
five having his knowledge, having the power of both his brain and his strength over his competitors.

the evens were scared, they were shy, they were the followers, two were afraid of their powers, one spent his entire life proving his powers were enough for him to be the best.
they had traits that made them weaker,
diego had his stutter, it made him small, proved he wasn't as big and bad as he made himself out to be,
klaus had his fear of his powers, which lead to his drug problem,
and ben was afraid of himself, more precisely the monster inside of him.

they never knew the true meaning of the numbers though, they spent their lives living under their own made up perception of them.

all luther knew was he was number one, which meant he was the best, he was the leader. he was number one

all diego knew was he was number two, meaning he was second best, not the best, he would spend his whole life competing and proving himself to be the best, proving himself to be worthy of the name number one, but deep down he knew he'd always be number two

allison didn't know why she was number three, when she could easily be number one, she could get whatever she wanted by saying one phrase, so the number didn't mean much, when she knew she was the most powerful, she may have been called number three, but in her eyes she had the most power, she was number one in her own mind.

klaus couldn't give two shits about his number, he didn't care that he was number four, he wouldn't care if he was the lowest number possible, he was always too high to care when it mattered, when they training got worse and the numbers came into play more and more, he only got higher and higher by the day, which meant everything was more and more blurry, and everything meant less and less.

five cared about his number when it had meaning, he didn't get why he had a lower number than klaus, when he was useless, or than diego, who could only throw stupid knives, five could time travel for fucks sake, so he didn't get why he was number five when he was there, but after he didn't listen to reginald and time traveled to the apocalypse, his number didn't matter anymore, considering nobody else on earth was alive to prove himself to, or to compare himself to, so he stuck with five, never caring enough to give himself a name considering it was the least of his concerns, there was nobody to  introduce himself to, so why did it matter, he thought.

ben thought his number was because he didn't comply to reginald's orders, his fear and failure to comply to the orders made him utterly useless, he knew this, that's why he never cared about his number that much.

vanya knew why she was number seven, she was the most useless, she was ordinary, she had no powers, she had no value to reginald, that's why she had the number 7.

the numbers realistically didn't have the meanings the kids thought they had,
the numbers at first were because of the order they were collected in, luther being the first, vanya being the last, but the reason these numbers were kept were because of their power,

luther being number one because he was the most compliant, but had the most generic power,

diego being number two to challenge him, and because of immense power he had in his mind, the strategics of throwing his knives were to thank for that, but not being higher because his powers weren't all that useful,

allison being number three because that's simply where she fell in place, she wasn't the highest or lowest because she couldn't hurt anyone physically with her words, unless she told them to do so, and because she could still cause some damage,

klaus being number 4 because he was
powerful, but he was afraid of his powers, when in the face of them he cracked, he broke in pieces, that's why he was ranked low,

five being five because he stood in the middle of all of their powers, he could jump through space, but that was it, which was why he was ranked in the middle range,

ben being six because he killed so many, he held so much physical power, the monsters inside him were so much more powerful than the others,

vanya being seven because of just how powerful she was, which is why she had to have her powers hidden, she was to powerful for her own good, but still ranked the highest because of how powerful she truly was, taking sound and emotion and turning it into power was better than most of the others could do combined.

though none of the kids would ever know that, and the only ones who knew, reginald and pogo, would never tell them, which left them to believe their own theories.

that's why for so many years luther believed he had leadership over everyone, that he was number one because he was the most powerful,
and why diego felt so defeated and angry for so long because he never would be the leader, always coming in second place,
and why allison would go on to take the whole world in her control, proving herself to be nothing but number three,
and why klaus would party so hard that most times he couldn't even remember his number,
and why five spent the time with the others proving and learning to be better than his number,
and why ben hated being so afraid and useless because he was supposed to be powerful, but he was useless number six,
and why vanya spent her whole life thinking she was just ordinary, the powerless number seven everyone had always known she was.

the only time they ever drifted from that false reality was when proof the numbers were inaccurate was right in front of them, about to cause the apocalypse.