𝘧𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥 ⇻ 𝘯𝘶𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳 𝘧𝘪𝘷𝘦

chapter vi

❝ᴏɴᴄᴇ ɪ ʜᴀᴅ ᴀ ʟᴏᴠᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ɪᴛ ᴡᴀs ᴅɪᴠɪɴᴇ. sᴏᴏɴ ғᴏᴜɴᴅ ᴏᴜᴛ ɪ ᴡᴀs ʟᴏsɪɴɢ ᴍʏ ᴍɪɴᴅ.❞

"Three days?" Allison stood around the remaining Hargreeves, (minus Vanya), handing out coffee. Effie was also there, sipping her hot chocolate silently.

"That's what Five said." Luthor replied, taking the coffee from her.

Klaus mused, "the old bastard did mention the apocalypse, come to think of it. He just left out the part about how soon."

"But can we trust him? I don't know if you've noticed, but Five's a little.." Allison trailed off, her hand flying to her head, mimicking the action of showing someone's cuckoo.

Klaus interjected, fondly. "Our little psycho." Effie chuckled along with him, sending him a stupid face, miming Five's strictness.

Frowning, Luthor spoke. "He was pretty convincing. If he wasn't trying to stop an apocalypse from happening, those two lunatics wouldn't be chasing him."

"That's why they were chasing him?" Diego looked at Luthor, eyes cold. Luthor confirmed it.

"What did Five even see?" Allison took a sip of her coffee.

"Uh.." Luthor's voice lingered. "Apparently, we all fought together against whoever was responsible. So, here's the plan. Uh, we go through dad's research--"

"--Wait, what? Hold on, hold on." Everyone groaned at Luthor's words.

"Wait a tick, wait a tick. What actually happened the first time around?" Klaus sat on the couch lazily, arms raised in a 'question' like form. Diego agreed.

"C'mon, big boy, spit it out." Luthor was on the spot.

Glancing anxiously at all the Hargreeves and Effie, (who already knew), he muttered. "We all died." Then, he took a sip of coffee.

"What was that?" Allison said.

Effie took over, coming to the conclusion that Luthor didn't have the guts to tell his siblings that they died. "We died." Her voice was smooth, like velvet.

To disturb the peace (if you could even call it that), that had been laid by the statement, an umbrella went off and Klaus yelped.

As they formulated a plan to save the world, with Effie adding her 20 cents every so often, two sets of footsteps entered the house- idly talking. Effie recognised one of the voices as Vanya, and someone else. "Hey. What's going on?"

The unknown set of footsteps and voice turned out to be a man, not much taller than Vanya. Perhaps, lovers? Friends? Eff didn't know. The question was directed at Allison, so she glanced at Luthor for reassurance, and then back to Vanya. "It's a family matter."

Vanya scoffed. "A family matter. So of course you couldn't bother to include me." She glanced at Effie, sitting with Klaus on the floor, shuffling the tarot cards she'd retrieved from Hazel and Cha-Cha. "She's not even family!"

Effie turned around, eyes widened. "I'm Klaus's housemate! I took care of his sorry ass when you all didn't give a rat's ass about him." She glared at the woman, hands curled into fists with leaves appearing from them, if you looked very closely.

Luthor rushed to pick up the pieces of the conversation that was falling apart. "No! It's not like that. We were--" Vanya cut him off.

"Don't let me interrupt." She said scornfully.

"Wait!" Allison cried, "I'll fill you in later, when we're alone."

Vanya only sneered. "Please, please. Don't bother. And I won't either."

Allison was hurt. "Vanya, that's not fair."

That seemed like the wrong thing to say. "Fair? There's nothing fair about being your sister. I have been left out of everything, for as long as I could remember. And I used to think it was Dad's fault, but he's dead. So it turns out, you're the assholes." Vanya turned and stalked out of the house, the man following behind like a lost puppy.

Effie crumpled. She sat on the floor, legs crossed, and wiped a sliver of a tear away. She knew it was Vanya being revengeful at her siblings, but she couldn't help feel like it was her fault, even if she'd only known the woman for a couple of days. Klaus went to comfort her by placing a hand on her back, but she only sighed. Effie turned away, whilst taking a shuddering breath. She shuffled her cards and watched as one fell out, intrigued. The Lovers, upright. Interesting.

"I'm gonna go find Vanya and explain." Allison went to leave, but Luthor reeled her back in.

"No, wait! There isn't time. We need to figure out what causes the apocalypse. Now, there are loads of possibilities. Nuclear war, asteroids, but I'm thinking this is about the moon. Right?" Luthor said, glancing at his siblings and almost ignoring Effie. "Dad must have sent me up there for a reason. And I was giving daily updates on the conditions, I sent field samples. So the first thing we need to do is find his research."

Klaus interrupted, "Hold on. Hold the phone. We all died fighting this thing the first time around, remember?"

Diego agreed. "Klaus, shockingly, has a point. What gives us a win this time?"

Allison shrieked when the air crackled with electricity, the blue kind. For the second time in the past 2 weeks, Five fell from a whirling mess of blue and onto the table. "Jesus!"

Klaus's eyes widened. "You guys, am I still high or do you see him, too?"

"Five, where've you been?" Luthor's voice was cold and hard.

Allison and Luthor moved to speak at the same time, respectively.

"--Are you alright?"

"Who did this?"

Five just muttered, "irrelevant." He was panting like a dog, but still stood up. He somehow found Allison's coffee and after slurping most of it down, he spoke again. "So, the apocalypse is in three days. The only chance we have to save the world is.. well, us."

"The Umbrella Academy." Diego slotted in.

"Yeah, but with Eff and I, obviously. So if y'all don't get your sideshow acts together and get over yourselves, we're screwed. Who cares if our Dads messed us up?" He glanced at Eff, sending a small smile at her, which she returned.

"Are we gonna let that define us? No. And to give us a fighting chance to see next week, I've come back with a lead." He held up a crumpled piece of paper like it was an important treaty. "I know who's responsible for the apocalypse. This is who we have to stop."

He handed the paper to Allison, who immediately unfurled it and held it out in front of her, as everyone read for their own eyes who they'd have to stop. "Harold Jenkins?" The words came out confused, instead of confident.

"Who the hell is Harold Jenkins?" Diego tried to get Five to answer, but he only finished the rest of Allison's coffee. Effie sighed. This would be a very long 3 days if she could help it.