The trip to MeriTech turned out to be pointless; though Rhea was thoroughly entertained albeit a bit disturbed by the way Klaus got the information. After the initial shock of Klaus punching his 'son' in the face, slamming a "Peace on Earth" snow globe into his own head and ripping Rhea's shirt lace open to expose her bra, she had to admit it was a good plan to blackmail Dr Lance by saying he had assaulted them all in order to get him to talk. Unfortunately the guys' pain and her exposure turned out to be unnecessary because Lance had said the eyeball hadn't even been manufactured yet.
As the trio exit the building, Rhea's pleased she picked up her leather jacket earlier so she was able to zip it up to cover up her now ruined top. Five was looking more defeated than he did earlier.
"Well this is not good," he states.
"I was pretty good, though, right? 'Yeah. What about my consent, bitch?'" Klaus chuckles manically.
"Klaus, it doesn't matter anymore." Rhea snaps.
"What? What? What's the big deal with this eye, anyway?"
"Whoever loses that eye in the next seven days is going to end the world. You know, the big boom, the apocalypse, bye-bye everyone and everything," Rhea explains and Five nods his head in agreement.
"Yeah - can I get that 20 bucks, like now, or what?"
"Your 20 bucks?" Five asks astonished the same time Rhea shouts, "What?!"
"Yeah, my 20 bucks."
"Rhea just told you the apocalypse is coming, and all you can think about is getting high?" Five hisses.
"Well, I'm also quite hungry. Tummy's a-rumblin'." Klaus imitates a stomach groaning noise to emphasise his point.
"Klaus, that's unbelievable - even for you," Rhea admonishes and pushes past him to sit on the step outside the labs in sheer despair over her brother's attitude.
"You're useless," Five says looking up at Klaus and then turns towards Rhea, "they're all useless!"
"Oh come on! You need to lighten up, old man - and Rhea, don't start on me again," Klaus pouts as Five moves to sit beside Rhea, pissed that no one but she was taking him seriously.
"Hey, you know, I've just now realised why you're both so uptight. You must be horny as hell!" Klaus laughs as he moves to join them, sitting on Rhea's right. He looks at Five, "All those years by yourself. It's got screw with your head, being alone."
He then addresses Rhea, "And you, when was the last time you got laid? You're a total hottie, so you should stay like this" he waves his hand over her grown-up body, "you will have guys all over you." His grin widens and he begins wiggling his eyebrows as his eyes dart towards Five and back a few times.
Thankfully, Five is looking ahead, but Rhea elbows Klaus in the side – hard - and glares, refusing to deem that worthy of a verbal response.
"Ow," Klaus silently mouths to her as he rubs his side dramatically.
After a few beats of silence, Five looks up at Klaus and confesses, "Well… I wasn't alone."
Rhea's eyebrows rise at his confession and Klaus replies, "Oh? Pray tell."
"Her name was Delores. We were together for over thirty years." Fives' eyes quickly meet Rhea's then return back to Klaus.
"Thirty years? Oh, wow!" the older looking brother chuckles, "God, the longest I've been with someone was… I dunno three weeks…" Klaus looks away as if he's taken back there himself.
Rhea can see Five's 'calculating face' again, and before she can ask what he's thinking, he's grasping her hand and spatial jumping them away from Klaus to reappear in a taxi, still sat.
The cab driver understandably jumps and gasps upon seeing the pair of them magically appear in his rear view mirror.
"Don't stop. Just keep going," Five orders the driver as he leans over Rhea to salute-wave to Klaus out the window. She can imagine the look of sheer perplexity Klaus can see on her face while he shouts at them from where he was ditched across the street. Five had barely said a word to her all morning, and here he was bringing her with him? It made zero sense.
Five is so close to her, that she can actually smell his minty toothpaste and a hint of Axe body spray that she remembered was popular in the early noughties. Never being one to have known Five, she'd never set foot in his bedroom before, but she guessed he must have had some still in there when he dressed this morning.
Once Five had finished sniggering at Klaus' distress, he too realises how close he is to Rhea and how he'd easily and thoughtlessly invaded her personal space. He hurriedly moves away from her, and she's unsure if she saw a faint blush on his cheeks before he turns away.
The tension is broken by the cab driver who shakily asks, "So where am I taking you, M'am?"
Realising he's addressing her, Rhea looks to Five because he was the reason they were in the taxi in the first place.
"Take us to Argyle Street," he orders, so she adds "please" at the end of his sentence. Clearly Five didn't have any need for manners in the future, or was he always like this?
"What's on Argyle Street, other than the Public Library?"
Five raises an eyebrow at her as if it was obvious. "You want to go to the Library?"
"Many things can be learnt in the library," Five replies offhandedly.
"Yes, but what's there we need now? There was something that Lance guy wasn't telling us. I got this weird vibe from him, you know, like he was hiding something? I say tomorrow, we follow him around and see what it is. I know a guy who can get us his address, so we can check out that too. We will need to drive something inconspicuous during the day though, so your dad's car is a no go. Maybe an old van or -"
"- You sound as if you follow strange men often."
"Well, I do actually. It's my job, I'm a P.I. So - "
"- A 16-year-old private investigator? People actually buy that?"
"Yes. How else do you think I pay rent? Now seriously, listen; looking at those serial numbers earlier, the lab churns out about 918 of those eyes a day, so by my calculations from the last batch code, the eye will be made by tomorrow. Therefore, there's nothing we can do tonight. I doubt there will be any answers in the library on future glass eyeball purchases, so why don't we just go chill somewhere and maybe get something to eat?"
"Chill?" Five stares at her like she's just grown another head. "First Klaus with his money and now you? You guys are unbelievable – the apocalypse is coming and you want to just 'go chill'?!"
The driver is staring at them in the rear-view mirror upon hearing Five's raised voice - he's undoubtedly thinking the boy in his car has gone crazy. The man-child doesn't notice or care about his audience, instead he shakes his head and clicks his tongue while his jaw ticks in annoyance.
"Look," she replies in a softer tone to try calm Five down, "I'm not saying this because I don't care or to piss you off. I'm just saying you need to relax because there's nothing you can do about it tonight and there's no point in you keeping that stick up your ass."
He continues to silently glower at her so she carries on, "being this constantly stressed isn't good for you either. The world isn't ending yet. You need to look after yourself in the meantime. I bet you haven't eaten anything since you got here?"
He shrugs before opening his mouth to argue with her so she raises a hand out stop him, "Yes, I know you think there's no time and that you don't need to care about yourself since the world is going to end, blah, blah, blah... But your family cares about you… and although you may not give a shit, I've got to at least try to look out for you. For Vanya," she lets out a deep breath and adds, "and the others," as an afterthought.
Just like in the apartment last night, she can feel Five's tense position begin to ease beneath her fingertips, which surprises her as Five struck her as someone who wasn't used to or liked to be touched. Rhea had always been physically affectionate to those she cared for - only after she had gotten to know her adoptive siblings and their mum, that is. Briefly touching them on the shoulder, friendly hugs and even standing close was a comfort to her because it reaffirmed that they were going to always there for her - something she had longed for since she was an infant. It was hard to not be the same with Five, especially when he wore the Academy uniform reminding her of them.
After seeing a collage of expressions spread across his face, from anger, mild amusement, reluctance to tolerance, Rhea withdrawals her hand and smiles.
"You're right. Something about Lance seemed off, so we'll check it out tomorrow. But right now, I need to go to the library. While I do that, you can get the address. I will come with you only because I need somewhere to think and I can't do that whilst everyone is at the academy. Since you're now over 21, you can get us some more liquor, because that's all I really need to 'chill'," he smirks.
/
Once Five had collected the books he needed - including Vanya's biography which Rhea thought was very odd, but didn't comment on – the pair headed over to the nearest convenience store to pick up the liquor Five wanted. It made a nice change for Rhea to be able to buy her own booze here. Usually she had to grab and dash using her powers (leaving the money on the counter, of course) or get Vanya pick it up for her.
After making her purchase, Rhea follows Five out of the store and pulls him side-long into her jump to the alley next to their destination. The emerald glow erupts from her skin as she powers herself back to her 16 year old self. Feeling more comfortable in her younger body - though her clothes are loose again - she leads Five into Al's Gym. She had been here many times, not only because Diego lived here, but because she had needed a place to train that wasn't under Mr Hargreeves' roof, ergo his scrutiny.
When Rhea first came to visit Diego at his new place, the pair practiced their fighting skills in the gym's ring for old times' sake. Al had watched with avid interest and had immediately taken the pair under his wing to develop their skills further. Many times Al had asked them to put his best fighters to the test (without using their powers) to push them down a peg or two when they needed it. His fighters hated being beaten by a smaller but lethal Diego and a girl. Over recent years Rhea was often absent due to work commitments, but Diego continued to assist around the gym to help pay his way.
Although the gym was closed for the afternoon for a deep-clean, Al welcomed her in with open arms when she knocked on the glass door. He'd always had had a soft spot for Diego's 'little' sister. After giving teen Diego a thorough interview when he enquired about living on his property, Al knew of Rhea's powers too by association.
Rhea introduces the two men – Five as another Hargreeves and Al as her old coach - and they nod at each other in greeting. She then explains to Five how she and Diego had known Al since they were teens, "Al knows about us because Diego and I had to explain why we needed a private space to train sometimes and to justify Diego's weird blade obsession. We didn't want the public to know where we were so Al was a great help."
"That and to explain the reason you kept disappearin' and reappearin' around the poor boy in flashes of light as you fought… I thought I was havin' a seizure or somethin' when I saw you doin' that!" Al chuckles.
"What can I say, around your boys, I'll play fair, but can't do the same around mine," Rhea laughs. "Speaking of, is Diego here?" She ignores Five's eyes narrowing at her words.
"Yeah, he's in his room. A big guy visited him a while ago but left before I closed up."
"Ahh. It must have been our other brother, Luther. Hopefully those two sorted out their mutual Daddy issues," Rhea comments.
"Well, I'm just finishin' up this polishin' and then I'll be off as it needs to be left overnight. You can practice in the ring if you like, so long as you keep off my floors. You're, err, friend here will have to sit on the bench by the door if he wants to stay."
"Oh Al, you know I don't need your floors to travel and lucky for you, Five doesn't either," Rhea grins, "Not that he will be joining in. He's too scared to take me on."
Five rolls his eyes at her words but doesn't say anything. He flashes over to the designated bench and begins to scrawl inside Vanya's book with a pen he took from Lance's office.
"You kids will never cease to amaze me."
"We'll Five is here to, er, deface books to think, apparently, so I'd love to kill some time doing what I do best."
Your room's still where you left it. I haven' touched it as I knew you'd be back." Al salutes her and carries on with the last of his floor buffering, never being much of a talker unless it was about fighting strategy.
Seeing that Five was intently concentrating on his scribblings, Rhea teleports to her own locker room. By locker room, it was actually a small, lockable 10 by 5 foot closet. It had one set of tall lockers, an old plastic chair and couple of hooks on the wall. So, it was basic beyond belief, but Al had converted the space just for her because back then, she was the only female who attended the male-dominated gym. A proper ladies locker room had been developed since which she could use, but she loved the sentiment behind her own space.
Rhea had a couple of sets of clean clothes still in there, though her nose twitches because the fabrics smell a bit musty from lack of ventilation. Still, it was nothing a few sprits of body spray couldn't solve once she changed into a pair of black knee length yoga pants and a cropped hoodie. She stuffs her feet into her old white Nike trainers and takes out her gym bag to shove her other clothes in. The locker door held a small mirror, so Rhea was able to take out the pins Allison had placed in her hair with ease. Since it still held the slight curls, she shoved her hair up into a ponytail as opposed to her usual workout messy bun.
Satisfied with her look and ready to work out the kinks from last night's fight, she quickly calls to order the pizza asking for it to arrive after an hour, since the promise of food was the only reason she had actually got Five here. Rhea steps into her green glow and out onto the ring Five lifts his head at her entrance, but she doesn't bother speaking to him because the noise from Al's buffer is too loud.
She had left an old iPod Nano in her gym bag too, so she hastily plugs in her headphones, clips the device to her waistband and hits shuffle. 'Bring Me To Life' by Evanescence begins to play and she starts off with a few stretches.
/
Once Rhea feels fully stretched-out, she beings throwing some punches and kicks to the rhythm of 'Bleed It Out' by Linkin Park. It felt great to expel the last few days' stress; concentrating on her fighting always helped her forget the outside world and worries.
A few songs later, the muffled buzzing from the buffer ceases as Al shuts it off to put it away. As soon as he leaves the room, a sapphire flash bursts in front of Rhea and Five emerges with his hands in his pockets.
Panting mildly, Rhea stops to unplug her headphones and wraps them over neck, if the world wasn't ending, she would have considered getting a wireless set for her phone…
"Hey. Having fun vandalizing our sister's legacy?"
"I was actually writing out the notes from my copy in the future. It had equations and theories about the apocalypse. You know, that thing happening in a few days' time?" He bites his lower lip and tilts his head to the side expectantly.
"How can you remember all those notes you inscribed in a book decades ago?" Rhea questions as she uses her gym towel to wipe off the slight sweat on her forehead. It wasn't worth going into the apocalypse argument again.
"Photographic memory," Five replies as if she should know.
"Obviously the boy-genius has help from a phenomenal cognitive condition. Why did I even ask?"
"Ha. Ha. Anyway, how about we, what did you call it, 'spar'? I'm sure it will be much better for you than punching air. I'm also far from 'too scared to take you on'." Five asks straight-faced.
"Really? You're stepping off you're obsessive pedestal to actually take a break?"
"It's not actually a break is it? We all need to prepare for the fight to come. Not that I think this will be a challenge," he boasts.
"Hmmm. Well, if you want to give it a go, why not. Challenge accepted."
Five nods in agreement and the pair walk to opposite sides of the ring, Rhea unclipping her iPod and Five removing only his blazer.
"That's what you're going to fight in?" She gestures to his uniform, "surely you won't have enough flexibility? Why don't you pop back to the Academy and change?"
"Real life situations don't give you the chance to change. I thought that was proven last night?" He grins.
The two begin to slowly circle each other in the ring, both planning their first move. Hargreeves' Rule Number 4: Fully assess your opponent before you strike.
"Oh yeah - don't think I haven't forgotten you owe me an explanation about that."
"Don't think I haven't forgotten your explanation about dating Diego," Five jibes back.
"Looser talks first. And don't think I'm going to go easy on you, just because you're an old man."
"Were you never taught to respect your elders? They are superior." Five's smile widens and his dimples appear on his cheeks. Rhea shrugs and they move closer into the centre of the ring, both amused by their attempts at mock intimidating the other.
She rolls her neck side-to-side, and then falls into an easy stance. Five doesn't bother; he just goes at her as fast as he can. Rhea dives out of the way and tries to sweep his feet from under him, but Five leaps lightly over her leg and pushes her shoulder so she teeters forward. His arm gently wraps around her throat.
"Bollocks!"
"What if I had had a knife? You left yourself wide open." Five taunts, voice close enough to her ear that she can feel his breath on her cheek. He lets go of her and stands opposite her again, tongue in cheek and grinning boastfully at her failure.
Her expression morphs into a serious one, determined not to lose again, she launches at him with an invigorated fierceness. This time, he darts to the side and into his teleport. Rhea stops dead because of his use of powers.
"I thought we were going to play fair?" protests Rhea.
"Where would the 'fun' be in fighting like a normal person?"
"Okay, if you want to be like that. Good luck catching me."
/
Five doesn't get close to her again, but Rhea also fails to land a blow on him too. They dance around the ring using their spatial jumps trying to catch the other. Yet where one lands, the other flashes away just as swiftly and so on. They create a luminous display of blues, greens and whites within the otherwise dimly lit gym - like an alternative, flashy interpretation of the northern lights.
After a few minutes, the frustrated look on Rhea's face melts to match Five's smile. Clearly the pair of them were enjoying the game of chase more than the chance to actually strike the other.
Meanwhile, Al walks towards the ring to watch the teens' battle - his freshly polished floors forgotten whilst his attention is captivated by the display. He watches avidly as Rhea takes on someone who also possesses her abilities by the looks of it and matches her in skill. Rhea couldn't get the boy, but the boy couldn't really get to her either; the two of them touch almost every square inch of the ring in their pursuit, but never each other. They lunge and strike towards each other between using their powers, but also dart and avoid the attacks just as fast.
Eventually, Rhea stops and huffs, "Are we really going to keep doing this?"
"Catch me if you can, Number 8." Five smirks and flashes to stand atop one of the corner posts. As Rhea approaches, he jumps off and lands across the room on the bench he was previously sat on, and the game begins again, despite their tiredness from excessive power-use.
Al watches on, impressed with the pair of teens. They were so well matched that he almost wished Five was around back in the days when he was training Rhea and Diego.
Eventually, Rhea's thoughts drift to yesterday when she followed Five through his jump. This time, rather than trying to use her own powers, she wills herself to travel though his field again. Just as he steps back into the blue energy with a cocky smile plastered on his face, she steps forward at the same time.
Five emerges on the other side of the ring only to have his grin wiped clean off his face when he sees Rhea step in front him immediately after. Before Five can think to move, Rhea quickly strikes him with a well-aimed punch to the jaw. Five quickly recovers from the blow and swings at her, but Rhea seizes his wrist and tosses him over her shoulder, pivots and lands astride him pinning both is arms above his head by her hands.
"Ha. Caught you!" Rhea cheers as she blows the loose strands of her auburn hair off her forehead.
Five is baffled by her sudden move, "What? How did you… Did – Did you follow me through again?" he pants heavily under her.
Rhea breathes a short laugh as she's also quite breathless, "Yup," she confesses, popping the 'p'. "I know you're superior and all, but you shouldn't get so cocky should you?" she giggles at her statement.
Five's previously stunned expression is turns into an open grin, clearly impressed with her unexpected attack. Rhea mirrors his smile, but soon realises she's still leaning over him, her face level with his.
Promptly, she releases his wrists and sits up further back on his thighs. Five shifts his upper body from the floor by propping himself up on his elbows and the pair concentrate on steadying their laboured breathing.
A little line of blood trickles from Five's split lip, so he gently dabs it with the tip his tongue. The movement catches Rhea's attention and she apologises,
"Sorry about that. But, the main question is: do you surrender?" she copies his signature smirk to use against him.
"I'll never surrender," he smirks back at her, "but you win this round."
The teens' eyes lock, only to snap apart at the sound of Al releasing an awkward cough.
Pleased with Five's answer and finally gaining some composure, Rhea smiles at Al as she lifts herself off Five to stand. She holds out her hand to him and he surprisingly accepts it to pull himself up. Rhea can't be sure, but Five's cheeks look a little flushed - more so than what they were before. He hastily turns away from her with his hands on his hips and moves back towards his blazer.
"So Al, did you enjoy the show?" Rhea asks as she reaches for her stuff on the opposite corner stool.
"Er, yeah," Al agrees. "Good form, both of ya."
"She's telegraphing with her right," Five comments, now tenderly dabbing a finger to his lip to assess the minor damage.
"Yeah, still droppin' your right shoulder Rhea. We have talked about this before."
"What did Five do wrong?" Rhea asks, pouting a little bit. Five stifles a laugh, eyes fixed on her lower lip, forgetting his own stinging one.
"Er, as he didn' connect with you, I can't really judge his form," Al admitted.
Evidently Al wasn't in the room when Five caught her by the throat earlier.
Thank god. I would have never lived that down…