"I know this Jenkins jerk has a previous record. That'll have his last place of address" Diego parked the sleek black classic cadillac a block away from the Manhattan Police station. It appeared to be one of the more of the nondescript Hargreeves cars, but despite their need to stay incognito, it was still rather eye-catching. "We just gotta get our hands on his file"

"How are you so sure that this guy has even got a record?" Allison asked skeptically.

"Coz Harold Jenkins is the Umbrella Man" Diego replied as he made sure that no one (save for the guy who was pissed off they had taken his spot) was looking their way.

"Tss!" Allison hissed as she perked upright at the admission

"The Umbrella Man?" Five puzzled, brows furrowed as he spared a confused look between both siblings, looking for an explanation.

"Oh right, that was after you left" Diego brightened, clicking his fingers in recognition.

"He's like the youngest serial killer in the state, to date" Allison replied.

"He's also got this weird obsession with us—the Umbrella Academy—hence, y'know, the whole Umbrella Man thing"

"…How does Vanya even know a serial killer?" Five asked.

"They went to school together" Diego replied, checking the rear view mirror. "It also means that Theodore's got all the other kids beat on Career Day. 'Oh, your Dad's a Vet? Well, MINE'S a mass-murdering serial killer with a hero complex!"

"So your plan is to…what?" Allison returned to the conversation at hand. "Just waltz in there and ask for the file?"

"I know this station like the back of my hand, sis" Diego cockily replied, "Spent a lot of time inside—"

"—Yeah, in handcuffs"

"What—no—look, here's the plan—"

"—Plan? What plan?" Five interjected, rather puzzled about Diego's demeanour as he paused with his hand on the passenger's side door. "I'm just gonna Blink in there and get the file"

"No, that's not…" Diego denied, growling frustrated at the lack of respect for his newly acquired leadership role. "You don't know the ins and outs of this place, okay?"

"I literally just did this yesterday" Five rebuked.

"…What?" He turned to his younger brother with confusion clearly plastered across his face.

"Well, my yesterday, not your yesterday" Five shrugged, explaining poorly what he meant. "It'll take me like two seconds—"

"—Listen to me, you are not going in there!" Diego refused again, "I made a call, because that's what a leader does—he leads"

"Yeah? Y'know, what else they do—?"

"—Are you two gonna spend the whole day measuring dicks?" Allison leant forward from the backseat to pop her head up between the two front seats, so that she could eyeball her previously bickering—now blushing/spluttering—brothers. "Or did you forget the ticking time bomb that is doomsday?"

Snow white ash fell from the sky like sooty snowflakes as Theodore came to, only to find that the world around him was so much different than the world when he had left it. It had to be no more than a few moments that Theodore had succumbed to the darkness dancing around the edges of his vision, but when he returned, he found himself in a winter wonderland unlike any he had seen before. Where he had once been curled up in the little bathroom in the back of the auditorium with Milton pounding on the door, he now found himself in a wasteland built of spouting toiletries, wheezing pipes and scorched bodies. Littered amongst the ashen remains of textbooks and half-charred furniture lay the skeletal ruins of a once-beautiful (both academically and architecturally) school. But the imposing visage that was once Saint Gregory's Royal Academy was long gone by now; undone by an overwhelmed LANE who missed his vera.

Their was no denying that his handiwork had been devastating—it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure that one out—and as he stared around at the damage he had caused, Theodore found himself balking because he didn't know that he was capable of creating this kind of damage. Sure, Doro had tried again and again to get him to do something akin to this magnitude of power, growing up, but Theodore had never really been one to blow things up. He knew that his vera liked to scream at the trees until they fell over but that noise always grated on his ears; just about the same as when Vera and Doro were both chomping at the bit. That was why he liked Vera's violin better; it was so much more soothing than her screams.

As he slowly clambered to his feet, arms burning with the lumen that had scorched them with lichtenberg scars and his cheek which had become encrusted with melted glass from where his prosthetic eye had once sat, Theodore found himself wondering what would Don Fën do if he saw what his neef had done. He wondered if his smallest Don would think himself back in that apocalyptic future he kept crowing on about because Theodore sure felt like he was and for the briefest of moments, the Garde boy was worried that he had brought about that prophesied disaster. But as he waded his way through the towering & swaying rubble (as he stepped over the humanoid scorch mark that had once been his best friend), he could hear the wailing of screeching sirens outside as emergency services rushed to their aid. Theodore wasn't sure how he should feel about that; on the one hand: help. On the other hand, LANE Keepers.

Stumbling through the ruins, covered in soot and lichtenberg burns that itched at his skin, Theodore had yet to truly grasp the extent what he had done. The Garde boy had never quite lost control like that before and as his shaky arms came up to hug himself, shock painted him numb and made it so that he was not able to process what was happening to him in the moment. Not just yet anyhow; no that would come later—likely with a lot of tears—when he was safe from prying eyes, he was sure of it.

What he did know—what had pierced through the thick blanket muffling his mind—was that he couldn't stay there at school for too long. Theodore knew that if he stayed there in the eye of the storm, the LANE Keepers would surely arrest him or worse before they dragged him off to some rehab centre like they did to the others. He was terrified of what would happen if they did; he'd heard the horror stories and even seen some of the captures. He knew what would happen if that horrific shock collar was placed on him; he knew that he would be trapped & caught like some prized buck if he ever dared to fight back.

As he mindlessly passed through the ruins of the locker room and the passageway that led out to the back field where the emergency meeting point sat, Theodore found himself pausing when his foot crunched over something charred. Down, down, down his gaze went until he found himself staring at the ashen remains of the infamous ducky tie that Mr Bergman loved to wear. Its bright red material was a stark contrast—almost like blood—against the grey of the new world it served to kick Theodore's racing heart into gear.

Almost as if a bucket of cold water had been dumped over his head, the Garde boy immediately burst into wheezing tears; ones that clawed their way up his throat and lodged his stomach deep in his toes. He cried and wailed until he felt sick, his vision blurring as snot mixed with his tears to create a cocktail of gross. Mr Bergman—although a bit of a hardass in the classroom—had protected Theodore (unprovoked) when the time came for it and how did Theodore repay that kindness? By roasting him alive alongside everyone else—including his best friend, Milton and the other kids—in that godforsaken place.

Guilt choked at his heart, making it hard to breathe and gasping coughs to fall from his lips in hoarse and burning bouts, as he wept for the horrible sins that he had unwittingly committed. Bent in half, the heels of his palms dug into his sockets in an attempt to stop the tears but all it served to do was make stars dance in front of his vision instead. Wailing like a newborn babe, Theodore begged & pleaded for forgiveness that he knew he did not deserve and as he inadvertently bowed to the teacher who had saved his life, only to die at his hands, Theodore mourned for the loss of life & innocence on both ends.

That was until the faint chatter of a dial tone caught his attention and when his head snapped up towards the source, he found the visage of Principal Higgins hunched over his phone, to be rather blurry. Theodore's heart quickly leapt up into his throat as the far off headmaster stood on the edges of the surviving student body as he shifted through the reams of roll calls before he called the LANE emergency hotline, just as it had been advertised only moments ago. Even though it was inevitable, Theodore still felt a surge of a betrayal pierce straight through him at the sight of his headmaster calling in reinforcements; as he called in back-up to hunt down the dangerous LANE responsible. In this case, that 'dangerous LANE' was him.

Backing away from the doorway, Theodore stumbled over his own feet (mindless of the noise he was making and the attention that he was inadvertently drawing to himself) as he fled the crime scene. There was no way he was going to stick around and wait for the LANE Keepers to show up; especially not after the week he'd had or the fact that a gaggle of them were still (likely) gathered outside their apartment complex in the hopes of catching the unsuspecting LANE that they thought was responsible for the attacks earlier in the week. The hope was, because the LANE—or this case, Don Fën—had been spotted around their 'home base' then it was to there that he'd return only to find himself caught. Which was why they'd made themselves scarce in the first place.

Panic engulfed him as he ran, tripping over himself in an effort to escape back out onto the street and lose himself amongst the throngs of swarming New Yorkers before the Keepers had a chance to collar him. It was because of this same panic that he would never notice the equally panicked stare of his principal or the pointing of his peers who had managed to capture a grainy screenshot of his blurry figure fleeing from the scene, on half-sparking cellphones. It was because of this that Theodore would soon find his secret known to the world and that world would not be kind; shattering any sort of hope that he had for a semi-normal future.

Out on the street, the damage was more noticeable but less deadly, which was why Theodore was able to slip away into the crowd that had already started to form around the perimeter. Pelting down the main street, he didn't stop until he reached the end of the block where he paused to catch his breath and watched as a stream of LANE Keeper vehicles & emergency services raced towards the disaster site that had once been the illustrious school.

Guilt pricked at Theodore, because of course it did, and shock had settled back in his system like a drug. In the end, only one thought kept the Garde boy moving: Stay away from the Keepers. Find Vera. Get out. The wailing of sirens and the chatter of newscaster vans charged down the street with an almost bloodthirsty intent. Theodore knew that he didn't have long until these wolves tracked him down. So, he ran.

Waiting idly in the car for Diego to return, Allison and Five spent the time in somewhat awkward—but amicable—silence. Where Five was left to stew in his thoughts about the impending doomsday, Allison found her own whirling mind turning towards her daughter, Claire, and if she would ever see her again before all of this was over. Thankfully before the pair could delve further into their own twisted minds (despite their clear desire to) Diego returned with a shiftily-acquired file in hand.

"So?" Five latched onto his appearance like a dog with a bone, clearly wanting to do this apocalypse thing his way as he hopped into the driver's seat and cranked the window down.

"You're welcome" Diego sassed as she plucked the blue file from where he had hidden it in his sling and brandished it in the air. Moving quickly, Allison scooted across the backseat and leant out of the car window to snatch the acquired file from her brother so that she could flick through it.

As Diego shoved Five back over to the passenger's seat so that he could slot back into driver's seat as Allison flickered through the borrowed file. Pages upon pages of this Harold Jenkins character had been laid out before her and told of his life from the time he was a tween (when he'd first been arrested) up until his adults years. The first half of the file was dedicated to the petty crimes he had committed; most of them involving injured animals or traumatising other children. The headshot clipped to the front of this section showed a young kid—probably no more than thirteen years old at most—with splotches of dried blood splattered across his face and a manic grin that twitched at his lips as he held up the plaque for his juvenile mugshot.

"…is Vanya?" Five asked, pulling Allison from her snooping.

"Hm?" Allison hummed absently, not looking up from the page in front of her.

"I said, do you know where my little sister is?"

"She's our sister too, Five" Diego scowled, hands gripping tighter around the driving wheel.

"Really? 'Cause you sure don't act like it"

"What? Like you're the golden brother? You weren't even here! I was—!"

"—Yeah. Anyway…" Allison interjected before her two brothers could rip each other's throats out or crash the car (y'know, whichever came first). "No one's seen her since Tuesday"

"Tuesday?!" Five exclaimed, "Why didn't you say anything sooner? Why haven't you done anything?! If she's the reason the world ends, why did you lose her?!"

"It wasn't on purpose!" Allison scowled, annoyed with her brother's dickish comments.

"Besides" Diego backed her up with an equal amount of irritation. "What do you think we've been doing?!"

"Do you really want me to answer that?"

"Dick"

Flipping over to the adult section of the file, Allison was met with more pages of the more in-depth information than she had been able to ascertain from the library's archives. Most were pertaining to the 'good behaviour' analysis reports from the prison counsellor or guards; plus several signed appeals to release him from his jail sentence. The most notable one pertained to his patricide sentence where he had been released early for good behaviour at the age of sixteen; which was probably around the time that Vanya met him, now that she thought about it.

"This is so…weird" Allison commented.

"What?" Five asked, curiously.

"The first time we're meeting Theodore's father and Vanya's…er, partner and it's through his criminal record. You'd have thought she would've mentioned something sooner"

"Are you kidding me?" Diego scoffed.

"What?" Allison pursed her lips.

"When was the last time you two actually sat down and talked? Without all the condescension and hostility?"

"…Well, when was the last time you talked to her, then?"

"Sunday" Diego replied succinctly, a smirk plastered firmly on his lips. "We went to the cinema"

"The cinema? What? D'you take him to see Doctor Sleep?"

"It was A Dog's Way Home, if you must know!"

"And I bet you cried like a baby!" Allison crowed, knowing just how sappy her older brother really was.

"I-I did not!" Diego refuted, however unconvincing.

"You did! You totally did!"

BANG!

"Diego" Five's fond smile dissipated in an instant as his head snapped upwards as something purple and humanoid suddenly hit the bubble hood of the cadillac. It rolled over the top of the windscreen and clung to the roof of the car even as it continued to trundle down the road. "Did you just run over our nephew?"