Five seemed to spend his whole life walking down the grubby dirt road, pulling Delores and his supplies behind him. Moving from a toy wagon, to a cart, to a push bike; the weather always pushing down on him, abusing him.
"Do you uh...remember that little mansion just outside the city limits?" an older Five asked Delores, sipping from a silver goblet as he did so, "Where we..."
"..."
"Yeah, well, it turns out the wine cellar was untouched" he chuckled, "Picked up a few cases of your favourite Bordeaux"
"..."
"Ah, that's an exaggeration. I don't drink that much. You know, I work hard all day. I-"
"..."
"Why would you even say that?..." The sound of rubble falling as it was moved. Reacting quickly, Five pointed the rifle in the direction of the noise, locking his sights on an elegantly dressed woman.
He thought he was hallucinating again. The woman was dressed in all black, black dress, black peacoat, black briefcase and black heels, like she'd just stepped out of the 40s and not an apocalyptic world.
"When's this supposed to happen?" Luthor asked the hungover Five, now awake and sitting upright.
"I can't give you the exact hour, but...from what I could gather, we have four days left" Five replied sullenly.
"Why didn't you say something sooner?!"
"It wouldn't have mattered"
"Of course it would. We could of banded together and helped you try to stop this thing"
"For the record, you already tried"
"What do ya mean?"
"...I found all of you...your bodies"
"...We die?"
A young Five stood grief stricken at the scene before him. Five bodies lay strewn amongst the ruins before him, five very familiar-if older- bodies.
"Horribly" replied Five, reliving his memories, "You were together, trying to stop whoever it was that ends the world"
"Wait, how do you know that?"
"This was clutched in your dead hand when I found you" said Five as he pulled out the glass eye from his pocket, rolling it around in his fingers before handing it over to Luthor, "Must've ripped it out of their head right before you went down"
"Whose head?"
"Like I said, I don't know"
"Well, there's a serial number on the back. Think maybe you could try-"
"No, that's a dead end...It's just another hunk of glass"
At that moment the door to the room burst open, Diego marched in holding tightly to the groaning body in his hands and an angry scowl on his face. "Piece of shit! You have any idea of what you just did?!" he demanded as he ducked under Luthor's arms and went to place the body on the bed, the sheet still covering most of her.
Once he had straightened once more, he tried to launch himself at Five only for Luthor to grab him around the middle and hoist him into the air. "Nope, let me- Get your ape hands off of me!" he grunted trying to wriggle free.
"I can do this as long as it takes for you to calm down" retorted Luthor.
"Fine" panted Diego as he stopped struggling.
"Now, wanna tell us what you're talking about?"
"Our brother's been pretty busy since he got back. He was in the middle of the Griddy's shootout and then at Gimble Brothers after the guys in masks attacked the academy looking for him"
"None of which is any of your concern" replied Five
"It is now, they just killed my friend and tortured Thea" replied Diego pointing towards the body on the bed. A strange look passed over Five's face as he shifted and reached over to pull back the sheet covering the body.
It was Thea. She was bloody and bruised, the only thing covering her was a pair of boxer shorts and a pendant. Five's hand clenched around the sheet in his hands, as he looked over the damage.
"Jesus" breathed Luthor from over his shoulder. Thea let out yet another low groan as she shifted slightly, revealing more of the wounds hidden under the sheet, "Who are they Five?"
"...They work for my former employer. A woman called The Handler" replied Five, still staring down at Thea before him, not meeting his brothers' eyes, "She sent them to stop me. Then, soon as Diego's friend got in their way...well, fair game"
"And now they're my fair game. And I'm gonna see to it that they pay" promised Diego before he turned to leave the room looking for the first aid kit.
"That would be a mistake, Diego. They've killed people more dangerous than you" warned Five.
"Yeah, we'll see about that"
About half an hour later, after the painstaking process of patching up the wounds decorating Thea and dressing her in one of Diego's t-shirts, she awoke. It was not quietly and it was not subtle. It was quick, as she jerked herself upright and leant over the side, expelling the blue contents of her stomach onto the floor.
Five was lucky enough that he had been across the room, fiddling with a trinket as he snooped through Diego's things. Luthor's shoes were not so lucky. "Ugh" groaned Luthor in disgust as he moved out of the splash zone, just as Thea came to a stop and flopped back on the bed.
Diego, having chosen that moment to return, took one look at the scene before walking back out the door. He soon returned with a mop and bucket, a bottle of water and a towel. The latter of which he handed to Thea as he quietly mopped up the mess on the floor.
Once the mess was gone, Five had to help Thea sit up against the headboard, before sitting on the edge of the bed, the rubbish bin next to him, just in case. "How are you feeling?" asked Diego, uncharacteristically quiet as Thea took small sips from the water water bottle.
"...Okay" she rasped, coughing slightly at the acidic taste in her mouth.
"Can you tell us what happened? What do you remember?"
"...Um...there were masked gunmen in the house. The ones from the thrift store"
"You were at Gimble Brothers too?"
"Mm...uh...they were fighting you three. Um, I followed the dog when the split up...we fought, I got knocked out. Um I remember waking up strapped to a chair, we were tortured for information, um..." rambled Thea as she rubbed her head, the start of a headache beginning to form.
"We?" interjected Luthor.
"Uh, me and Klaus" replied Thea. It took a moment for what she had said to sink in, before she bolted upright,"Klaus! Is he alright? Where is he?" she worried. A quick glance was shared between Luthor and Diego. "What?"
"...He wasn't there" replied Diego
"He might've gotten away though" added Luthor at the ashen look on Thea's face.
"Was there anything else?" asked Diego pushing for more information.
"Uh...I passed out towards the end. I think I woke up though at one point. There was a woman next to me on the floor, a detective, I think...I dunno. Next thing I know, I'm waking up here"
"What about the burns on your back? How'd you get those?" asked Luthor, arms crossed.
"...What?" breathed Thea, eyes wide before she stripped off the shirt and ripped the bandages from her body, ignoring both the pain and the protests from the boys as she did so. She shakily stood in front of the full length mirror and turned her back to and looked over her shoulder as much as she could.
When she saw what Luthor was talking about, she broke out into tears. They rushed down her face, blurring her vision and she would have dropped to the floor had Five not caught her in time as her legs gave out.
"No, no, no!" she wailed, her hands over her mouth as she continued to stare at the new mark she had gained. Instead of the usual three circular burn scars on her back, she now had four. However, the fourth was lower down her spine than the other three, leaving a fair amount of space between the top three.
No longer able to look at herself, she turned and buried her face in Five's shoulder. She clung to the boy holding her, the force of her sobs shaking her body as they sunk slowly to the ground. It couldn't be real! Please! Not another one! Please not Seven!
"...They're just scars" muttered Five trying to soothe the sobbing girl in his arms, but it only seemed to make her cry harder.
It took awhile, but eventually Thea was able to calm down. She now sat snuggled in the back corner of the bed, her back had been rebound in bandages and burn salve applied to the new scar. Here she sat with a sheet wrapped around her like a safety net and tucked into Five's side as she played with the pendant in her hands.
"...The scars. What are they?" Luthor tentatively asked from where he sat opposite the bed, trying to make himself as small and non-threatening as possible. Thea didn't speak for a moment, until Diego tacked on.
"Please Thea, if there's someone after you or hurting you-"
"It's not that kind of scar" Thea suddenly cut off, not taking her eyes off the pendant in her hands.
"What?"
"It's like-like a...There's no human word for it" she paused, struggling to find the right verbiage, "The closest word would be 'binding' or...'curse', maybe?"
"And what does this...curse do?" Five asked quietly watching her hands deftly play with the pendant, never once dropping it.
"...It acts as a safeguard. To protect the next generation of council elders. In order for us to fully die, we have to be killed in order-from one to ten...When one of our siblings is killed, we experience the death as if it were our own, and then we're branded with their mark...It's like some kind of twisted countdown. " sighed Thea.
"...What? Are you-are you saying that you're not human?" stuttered Luthor only to receive a glare from Five as Thea continued to explain.
"We each have a different brand, this is mine" she stated showing them the pendant she had been twirling around in her fingers. "The worst part is, when the Garde reunite, the...binding becomes void and they can kill us any which way they please"
"...If what you're saying is true, then who died?" Diego asked cautiously.
"Seven" sniffed Thea, her voice cracking slightly, "It's not usually that bad, the transfer. But the feedback from the broken binding combined with the loralite poisoning...my body just couldn't take it, it was like hitting the restart button" sighed Thea.
Silence fell over the room as what she had said, tried to sink in, that was until Five quietly spoke up. "That man back at Gimble Brothers...?" he trailed off, the question still hanging in the air.
"He was a Mogadorian, they're a warrior race, hunters. His people massacred mine...Now that they know I'm here, I'll be lucky if I survive the week"
"Shit"