This was prompted by the Scooby Doo movie (yep, the live action one from 2002) and the body swap scene. Thanks to El, Storm, Wren and Emma for the ideas they gave me after I mentioned my first thoughts!
Phillip (his most recently assumed name) pushed past the slightly sticky door and entered the dimly lit bar. As clandestine rendezvous points went, the bar was almost painfully apt. In fitting with the era, the room was clouded with cigarette smoke, men's hats pulled low on their brows as they hunched over their post-work drinks, and barely distinguishable music wafted in from the edges.
His contact was waiting for him at a corner table, his back pressed against the wall as he warily watched the exits for unwanted visitors.
"How you people keep getting these on me, I'll never know." Phillip grumbled as he sat opposite him, throwing yet another tracker onto the table.
"You're not as vigilant as you think you are."
Watching him for a moment, tapping at the edge of his empty glass, Phillip knew he was sitting before an expert in paranoia. "What am I calling you?"
"Frank."
"Phillip." He returned.
"I know." Frank said, cracking his first smile of the evening.
"Fuck you. Seriously, how?" Phillip asked, picking the tracker up to wave in Frank's face.
"Seniority buys you a lot of information in an agency such as ours." Frank replied vaguely, gesticulating lazily to the bartender for another round.
"That doesn't help me."
"No, but I will."
"In exchange for what?" A portion of his soul perhaps?
Frank motioned for Phillip to stay quiet as the bartender came over to pour him another drink.
Declining one, Phillip watched the man leave until he chanced speaking again.
"I'm not coming out of retirement."
"I don't want you to."
He blinked at that. All they ever wanted was their agents on the job or in a grave.
"But you do want me on a job?"
Frank nodded slowly. "That I do."
"Well you can stuff it." Phillip said. Like hell he was getting dragged into their nonsense again. He was in a good decade, he'd live out his life uninterrupted even if he did have to spend most of it running.
"You know our long-term plan, yes?" Frank asked; only he wasn't really asking. Everyone in the agency knew how it ended.
"Sure. Why do you think I asked to be sent back here instead of to my own time? Who wants to go out in fire when they can die in their own bed?"
"No one." Frank muttered, taking a long sip of his drink.
Phillip snorted. "That's not true. The agency does. You do."
"It may surprise you to learn Tango, that our long-term plan is not fully accepted. Even by those at the top." His glass clunked dully on the wood as he set it down, a hand coming up to tiredly rub over his face.
The sound of his old codename made him flinch but his voice stayed level. "You expect me to believe that?"
"You think we would have allowed Five to operate for as long as he had if there weren't people looking out for him? Willing to support his aims?"
"There's no stopping him." Phillip dismissed. He'd never worked with the agent but his reputation as the agency's best was well known. Perhaps the only person out there who stood a real chance against them.
It was Frank's turn to laugh; a hollow laugh which made Phillip doubt his existence. "We have the power to stop everyone and anyone. We could even stop her if we wanted to. Well, I do want to."
"Even if that's true, the other's would never allow it."
"They can't stop what they don't know." Frank corrected. "I, and a few trusted others, have always operated in the dark to support Five's attempts to stop the end of days. Originally I had thought him capable of altering events on his own. Now I see if events truly are to change I must involve my own hand, in spite of the risk it may bring to me and mine."
He leant back to pick something up from the floor; a cardboard box which he set on their table.
"You'd get me killed."
"No I won't. Not if you follow my instructions to the letter."
"You can't know that."
"I can actually." Frank said, polishing off his drink. "I oversee predictions: calculating the probability of events, figuring out what catalysts will produce them. And I have been working on this plan for a long time – from the first time. She really was an unexpected wrench; we didn't even notice her and then," his hand rose to mimic a bang, "extraordinary really. I would like to meet her one day."
His tone was fond as he described the malefactor.
"A horrific accident, yet instead of righting it many of us took it as a sign that the time had come for us to cease our operations. Retirement for some, rebirth for others.
"I began to trace the origins of the event. So simple to correct really, it would barely take a few years of work. One or two agents. Nothing to us. Yet when I and my supporters argued for its correction we were defeated and had to agree to the plan for our own preservation. When Five was detected in the aftertimes, I thought this external force would lead to a correction of events regardless of the agency's stance. Now I know more needs to be done. I cannot be a passive hand any longer – and I require your help."
"Why me?"
"You have the required skill set..."
"So do a lot of agents." Phillip said, cutting him off.
"You have previously voiced doubt to the final plan..."
"As have a lot of agents."
"And, truthfully, you are in the right time and of the right age." Frank finished. "Because, I'm sorry to say, this mission – if you choose to take it – will take quite some time. Our devices are too closely monitored to risk you using them. This is a mission that requires patience and a number of birthdays.
"I will help you disappear. Properly this time," Frank said disapprovingly, "allowing you to live out the next several decades in peace, comfort and in any other manner you choose. You can get married, have children, anything you like so long as it's out of the limelight. Staying out of sight is the only requisite for the next fifty years. Then, in 2002 I need you to deliver this."
Frank pushed the box across the table towards Phillip.
"The device inside will act as a catalyst, changing the outcome. Ensure you get it to this contact," a folded piece of paper was placed atop of the box, "and keep your distance. We cannot risk our involvement becoming known too early in the game. Not if we are to stand a chance of winning."
"Fifty years of peace?" Phillip asked dubiously.
"You'll die, peacefully, two days after your mission is completed - of old age. In your own bed. Or," Frank countered, "you can continue your slapdash methods and be discovered by the agency in three months when you will be given the option of continued service or execution."
Watching him digest his warning, Frank leaned back in his chair.
"So. What do you say? Are you with us? Or are you going to die on the 27th January, 1952?"
Phillip waved to the bartender for a drink.
They all stared down at the cardboard box sitting conspicuously in the middle of the shop floor.
"What do you think it is?" Klaus asked, nudging the corner of it with his foot.
"Klaus, you idiot!" Diego hissed. "There could be a bomb in there!
Klaus quickly withdrew his foot. "Do ya think?"
"The men who had it seemed awfully keen to get rid of it." Five mused.
Their mission had barely lasted a quarter of an hour, the criminals fleeing at the first opportunity. Allison had been able to rumour them into stopping and dropping their weapons, after which the police took over and carted the three men away. The wares they had attempted to steal from the jewellery store were handed back over to the owners, and the crime scene was being repaired around them as the Academy stared at the only remaining loose end.
"I vote we leave it for the police to handle." Klaus declared. "Yo, police!"
"Shut up, Four." Luther snapped, waving off the officer who started to approach them. "Let's just open it, then we'll know. We shouldn't risk civilians."
Without waiting for additional comments, he stooped forwards and pulled open the top of the package.
Inside there sat a bizarre looking object: gold, pyramidical and covered in symbols which looked as though they originated in an ancient and no longer used language.
"Looks like some kind of tech." Diego suggested, dropping down to crowd over Luther's shoulder - much to Number One's annoyance.
"Dad and Pogo will know. We should take it back with us." Luther said.
"Tech?" Ben asked Diego, ignoring Luther. "Are you sure? Looks more like an artefact to me. Maybe something from the store?"
"The owner said the bad guys brought this box in with them." Diego refuted.
Five bent over the box to survey it with a critical eye. "Maybe it's a weapon? Something they brought to knock out the store's surveillance. Except it's the middle of the working day, lots of witnesses to identify them." He added, dismissing his own theory as soon as he voiced it. "Something to use against the police perhaps?"
"Does it open?" Klaus asked, yanking the object up in his hands before anyone could tell him not to.
"Klaus!" Allison scolded. "Luther's right, we should just give it to Dad."
"It looks like these edges open." Klaus said, ignoring his sister. He ran a finger along one of the seams. As he did, the three sides sprung open. "Oh cool."
The six children collectively flinched as a light emerged, extinguishing almost as quickly as it had ignited.
"What the fuck was that?" Diego hissed.
"I don't know, but my stomach feels weird." Klaus said, leaning against Five for support. Five immediately pushed him away.
"Get off."
"Meanie."
Luther groaned, rubbing the side of his head roughly. "Not here, guys. Put whatever it is back in the box, Klaus. We're taking it home. Fall out."
Klaus followed Number One's order without complaint, which was an increasing rarity for him. But with his stomach coiling uncomfortably, suddenly the thought of going home - horrible place though it was - sounded pretty good.
Picking up the box, Luther lead the team back outside to the car where Sir Reginald, Vanya and Abhijat were waiting for them.
Ignoring the press who tried to ask questions and request pictures, the six marched into the car and took their expected places.
"Take us home." Reginald instructed Abhijat, raising the divider between the rear and front seats before his bodyguard could respond with an affirmative.
"Father, we found this." Luther said, settling the box on his lap. "The criminals brought it with them during the robbery. It appears to be some kind of artefact, or maybe technology of some kind."
"Pogo will examine it once we return." Reginald replied in clipped tones. He paid no mind of the box, and as usual offered no words of praise to his adopted children for completing their mission quickly and effectively.
"Are you okay, V?" Six whispered, having taken the seat next to their seventh member. She looked even paler than she had when they'd all exited the vehicle to start their mission.
"Yeah, my head just hurts a bit."
"Mine too." Six replied, though he was pleasantly surprised by how quiet the eldritch were being; considering they hadn't been let out for the mission. Usually they would be thrashing against him in frustration for being denied blood.
"Children." Reginald warned, his voice ushering in the usual wave of obedient silence.
They remained quiet for the rest of the journey home, each of the children wondering why they felt as though they'd left something behind but not daring to voice the feeling aloud.
I will try to update this as soon as I can but as my regular readers know I'm having extreme computer problems, so it depends on my access to computers and my patience trying to write on a tablet.
Please let me know your thoughts, I hope the opening with two OCs wasn't off putting but I wanted to give context before diving into the rest of the fic which will focus on the siblings.
Love to all 3