Currently stuck in isolation and I wrote this, figured I'd better get it out before the new season - I am SO excited!
Also I have Plans for this story but I honestly don't know when I'll be updating, life is busy but I'll do my best!
"Dad, who the hell are these assholes?"
Vanya blinked.
It was Ben. The very same Ben who had said goodbye to her in the mind-scape she had left and she felt a twinge of guilt. But looking closer, it wasn't the same Ben at all. He was dressed in the same pristine way but the hair that hung in front of his eyes? The sneer on his face? The confident way he stood, as if he were not afraid of every move he made, ever step he took. As if he had made peace with what lived inside him.
"Ben, what the hell are you–" Diego was cut off by Klaus muscling his way into the spotlight.
"Ben! Ben, it's wonderful to see you, you look so much more … angry than I remember. I mean, I always thought your vibe was a constant state of disappointment but now I think about it that might have just been me, but hey!" Klaus took a step to the side as if to go around Five towards Ben but something stopped him. "Let's let bygones be bygones, you're alive, we're back, we're all alive, and now we can all be one big happy family with dad and, uh, many, many very happy and emotionally healthy children all in one house together fighting crime!" Klaus clapped his hands.
"Klaus, move," hissed Diego, and Vanya realised he held a knife in his left hand.
"Diego, drop it. It's Ben," said Allison, gesturing at the young man standing in front of them, older than any of them had seen Ben. Except perhaps Klaus, who did not look fazed by the situation at all.
"Not our Ben," said Diego shaking his head and raising the knife.
Allison rolled her eyes. "Says the man who let his girlfriend go even though she tried to kill us."
"That's different."
"How?"
Diego did not answer and instead threw the knife.
Several things then happened at once. Klaus reached out as if to stop the knife and yelled indistinctly. Five, who Vanya suddenly realised had been unusually silent the whole time, took a step backwards, face white. His back hit Klaus in the chest, distracting Klaus from Ben as he looked down. And at the same time, the knife that had been flying through the air turned, redirected, and embedded itself in Five's lower abdomen.
Vanya gasped and covered her mouth with both hands.
Five wavered and then slid down Klaus' front. Klaus desperately grabbed at his clothing, trying to keep him upright. His cowboy hat fell off with the effort and Five sunk to the ground.
Noise erupted around them.
"Diego!"
"Oh my god, you hit Five."
"What happened?"
"Is he breathing? Klaus, is he breathing?"
"Guys, what's happening?" Luther, bless him, had moved to stand and face off to the Sparrow Academy, who Vanya noticed were staring down at the panicking group with an uncomfortable amount of interest. Ben had not lost the sneer, but he had crossed his arms and his eyes kept darting between the group and Reginald, who also stood silently watching from the other side of the room.
Vanya moved to stand next to Luther, fingers clenched into fists and chin raised as much as she could, breathing through her nose and trying to keep some grip on the fluttering feeling in her chest. She kept her gaze on the group helping Five, explaining quietly to Luther what was happening as the large man kept his eyes on the Sparrow Academy.
Klaus had tugged Five's head onto his lap, fingers moving around Five's neck searching for a pulse.
"Is he alive?"
"Just a moment, caller," responded Klaus in a shaky sing-song voice. His hand was shoved out of the way. Diego had skidded to his knees next to them and reached for Five, hands roaming the knife, Five's side, and then hovering over Five's mouth. Allison joined them, tugging off her gloves and pulling away what she could of Five's clothing.
"He's alive," grunted Diego. "He's b-breathing. Not w-well, but he's b-breathing."
Vanya heard Luther let out a gusty breath and reached out to touch his arm. Klaus began petting Five's hair in a rhythmic movement.
"We gotta leave it in there, leave the knife in there, don't touch it," said Diego, running his hands through his hair and leaving a small smear of blood on his forehead above his left eyebrow. Vanya stared at it. Blood. Five's blood. Five, who was currently lying half in Klaus' lap and half on the floor, eyes closed, bleeding, bleeding everywhere – Vanya could hear a loud ringing.
The windows around them exploded outward.
"Vanya?" asked Luther.
"I …" Vanya stopped. She took a deep breath. She clenched her hands. She closed her eyes for a moment, searching for the calm, thinking of Sissy and Harlan and sitting in the sunshine on the porch and Sissy's hand in hers – there! She latched onto the feeling – the calm – with an iron grip, took another deep breath, and opened her eyes.
Ben's portrait fell to the ground. The couches toppled over. The room shook around them.
"What the hell?" came a call from somewhere on the balcony.
"Vanya–" started Allison before the floor rolled and Allison's hands, where she was trying to wrap the knife and keep it steady in the wound, jerked.
The knife slid half-free. Five groaned.
"Shit! Shit shit shit!" Allison pulled the knife out in one smooth motion and frantically pushed down on the now profusely bleeding wound. Five groaned again, the sound escalating to a scream as Allison pressed deeper. "Diego, help me!"
"I-I don't–" Diego had gone white, hands fluttering uselessly over the thirteen year old lying in front of them. Klaus' petting had gone from comforting to frantic.
"Hold this and press down." She grabbed Diego's hand and positioned it. The floor rolled again and Vanya watched as Allison sought her gaze. Klaus and Diego did not turn to look, fixated as they were on Five.
"Vanya, you need to calm down," said Allison urgently.
Vanya stared back with wide eyes.
"This isn't me."
"What's happening?" asked Luther again. "Vanya?"
"What do you mean it isn't you?" asked Allison. She pulled Diego's other hand over until both his hands were providing pressure to the wound.
The ceiling rolled and one by one the decorative marble posts popped from their place holding up the mezzanine floor. The railing on the second story peeled off the floor to hang like ladders. The fireplace erupted into flames.
"Is it those Sparrow guys?" asked Luther. He puffed his chest out.
Vanya's gaze danced past Ben to the Sparrow Academy standing behind him – the Sparrow Academy who were scattered across the balcony where they looked to have fallen like bowling pins with the movement of the room. One was helping another to their feet and as before the cube floated ominously above them. None of them met Vanya's eyes.
"I don't think it's them," said Vanya slowly. "I think they're waiting for something."
Vanya's gaze moved slowly from the shaking room to the knife on the floor, to Five, and finally to where two of her brothers crouched together over the unconscious thirteen year old. One doing his best to comfort their unconscious brother. And one doing frantic first aid, blood streaked across his forehead, face as pale as she'd ever seen it, and the shaking to his hands violent enough to be seen across the room.
"Oh."
Diego glanced up at Allison, panicked.
"He's losing too much blood!"
The room rocked, no longer a roll but instead like the feeling when a swing stopped at its peak and then started to drop. Vanya staggered, tightening her grip on Luther's arm to keep herself upright, and watched as two of the loosened pillars begin to topple where four of her siblings crouched or lay right in its path.
"Guys, look out!"
"Five!"
The grind of marble. Dust falling. Screaming.
Klaus slowly opened his eyes and leaned back from where he had shielded as much of Five's body as he could. The high-pitched screaming slowly tapered off.
Silhouetted against the light from the window, Allison stood, one hand per pillar, holding them up as if they weighed nothing more than a bottle of wine.
Klaus started to laugh.
"H-how are you d-doing that?" yelled Diego from where he knelt frozen, arms locked in place. The room began to rock again and Allison's hands slipped a little.
"I don't know!" she screamed back.
"Diego," called Vanya, confident in her suspicions now, "you need to calm down."
"I am calm!"
"No, I mean," she said, and then paused. Statistically speaking, she had no idea if it would work, but it wouldn't hurt to try. "I heard a rumour you calmed down right now."
The rocking stopped. The fire died. A single glass somewhere on the mezzanine smashed. Silence.
"Oh my god."
"Vanya?" Allison gave a shove to one of the pillars and it flicked over, landing with a loud thud away from them. She propped up the other one against the wall. A red handprint on each was the only evidence she had held them aloft. "What did you do?"
"I-I don't … something's happened, we've all–" But she did not get to finish. A voice came from behind them, cold as she remembered.
"If I had any doubts as to your uselessness, this proves otherwise." Reginald stood, one hand on the head of his cane, no expression on his face. The rolling floor appeared not to have affected him at all. He stood steady as a ship's captain. "Sparrow Academy, destroy them."
Despite being shorter than most of them, Vanya was struck by how much it still felt as though Reginald were looking down on the rabble currently invading his house. Because that was what it was, Vanya realised. It was his house. For his new children. For the Sparrow Academy.
Noises rose from the mezzanine and Vanya realised what they had been waiting for. Where her siblings had never been patient enough to wait for a go order, this Academy was controlled, precise, deadly. The cube floated towards them until it hung up above, dodging the chandelier. Through the still-falling dust, Vanya could see a green flashing light coming from somewhere in the centre. And deep within the house, she thought she heard the call of birds.
Ben, still standing in front of them, smirked. It was strange to see such hate on his face when Vanya only remembered Ben's gentleness. But then, unlike her siblings, she never got to see the horror working. She never knew Ben as anything more than the person who let her borrow his books and talk to him late at night when all the others had gone to sleep.
Sounds like mud squelching echoed around the lounge. A tentacle flew forth from under Ben's shirt and wrapped itself around Luther, clearly placing him as the biggest target. It threw Luther to the ceiling, caught him on the fall down, and then slammed him into each of the walls surrounding them.
Allison screamed.
More tentacles emerged to creep across the floor towards the group on the ground. He was playing with them.
Vanya grit her teeth. All her life she had sat in the shadows wishing for the light. She had watched and waited, listened and seen. And now? Now her family was in danger.
"I – I heard a rumour you all ran away!"
The blinks she received in reply were not an unusual for her when she said something, but the sudden turn they all made was.
In a train, the Sparrow Academy jogged around the balcony, each of them staring down at her as they went, each of them glaring daggers. The cube floated after them. Ben moved as well. The tentacle extracted itself from around Luther's middle and dropped him on the ground; the horror was just as much controlled by Vanya's voice as the Sparrow Academy was and it disappeared as Ben walked past them, glaring just as much as his siblings.
A movement behind Vanya made her turn and, to her surprise, Reginald had also done an about-face and was striding from the room. He stayed facing the lounge door, did not waver, did not look left or right. Only leaving mattered. Vanya swallowed. She may command his body but she still could not command his attention.
Vanya watched them, one by one, move out of the lounge and heard their footsteps echo down the stairs. The front door opened to let in a cool breeze, and then closed again. She let out a breath.
"Luther," said Vanya, hurrying over and reaching out a hand but reluctant to touch. Luther pulled himself off the floor to standing and wavered for a moment. He held up a hand to ward her off and tightened his coat.
"I'd forgotten what that was like," he murmured, shaking his head like he had water in his ears.
"The rumour won't last long," interrupted Allison. "We need to leave. Now."
Vanya tore her gaze from the lounge doors back to the present. Allison was kneeling next to Five again. She had cut her pants from the knees down and was tying them in strips around Five's middle. Klaus' hands fluttered next to hers, covered in dust from the pillars, before they resumed their petting of Five's hair. They were both silent.
"Which of us got Five's powers?" asked Vanya.
"What?"
"Five's powers, we've all switched with each other. Something must have happened when we travelled through time, but instead of ending up in our thirteen year old selves, we've become … each other."
Allison frowned and tied the last strip with a sharp jerk. Vanya saw Five flinch and saw Allison flinch in response.
"Let's all just try it," said Allison, still not looking up from Five.
They all twisted their hands, Diego a little slower than the rest. The glass-top coffee table behind them exploded in a shower of glass and Diego clenched his jaw. Vanya watched him take a deep breath and hold it, and hoped absently that he would work out sooner rather than later that he could no longer hold it indefinitely.
"Diego's out," said Allison, looking between their brother turning red and the coffee table. "So am I."
"Not Diego," said Vanya, quickly counting off on her fingers, "not Allison, presumably not Five though he can't tell us for sure – Luther or Klaus. It's Luther or Klaus, both of you try jumping!"
"Or better yet," said Diego, exhaling in a gust, clambering to his feet, and picking up a shard of glass from the coffee table, "process of elimination. Luther, turn around."
Luther did so and Diego threw the shard towards Klaus and Five, doing his best to hold it in the air with his telekinesis. The fireplace burst into flames again and another window smashed upstairs somewhere. "Klaus, redirect it!"
Klaus' mouth popped open and he did the equivalent of panicked jazz hands as the glass got closer.
"No no no, I'm a strong, strong pacifist, all that time in the army and then that cult–"
"Klaus!"
Klaus held out a hand and screwed his eyes shut. The shard stopped mid-air, less than a metre from where he knelt beside Five. Klaus slowly opened one eye, then the other, then groaned and dipped his head forwards.
"Really? Really Diego? This is what they do to me when you're not here," he said to Five, "I'm horribly bullied." Though Vanya noticed his voice grew quieter as realisation dawned in him what this demonstration meant.
Allison, Diego, and Vanya all turned to Luther.
"Wait," said Klaus, moving Five's head off his knees and scrambling to his feet, "wait, did I just – was that –"
"No time," said Diego, suddenly looking more steady than he had since Five had been stabbed. "Luther, get us out of here."
Luther looked at them.
"What?"
"You have Five's powers," said Allison, turning back to Five and lifting the limp boy into her arms. Diego moved next to her, eyeing Five with less guilt than earlier. He adjusted the strips and then beckoned.
"Come on, Allison, hand him over."
"I can carry him," said Allison sharply.
"You don't know your own strength right now, you could crush him."
"And being carried by a hot-headed moron with emotionally-tied telekinetic powers is so much better," snapped Allison scowling. Diego ground his teeth but only moved to readjust the bandages again, loosening them a little.
"They need to be tight," hissed Allison, "or he'll bleed out."
"Not that tight," snapped Diego in response.
"I, uh," said Luther, "what do I need to do?"
"I don't know," said Diego, still trying to manoeuvre Five from Allison's arms, "whatever Five does to make him such an ass!"
Luther waved his hands in an echo of Klaus' earlier jazz hands. Another few seconds went by without any blue glow.
"He's still bleeding out, Number One, get it together!"
"I'm trying! He makes it look easier than it is!" Luther clicked his fingers, clapped his hands, shook his hands, grunted, and clenched his fists, doing whatever he could with his hands, trying to trigger something, anything. His hands looked normal – or at least Vanya presumed they did under his gloves. But Five always got the glow over whatever he was wearing anyway so it wasn't as if he needed bare hands –
"Luther!"
Luther snapped his head around to see Vanya waving at him.
"Do the – do the thing!" Vanya motioned with her hands in a twisting motion like opening a door, and she could see that Luther recognised it.
"Uh, right." Luther tried twisting his wrists. Then again. Then – no, wait – wait – then again – and blue. Bright blue lit up his hands, up his arms, far brighter than Five's had ever been, and a different shade. Vanya had never seen such a light colour, almost white, coming from Five's hands. "Everyone grab hold!"
Allison tightened her grip on Five and stepped next to Luther, dodging Diego's persistent hands. Diego moved with her, still reaching for Five with a stubborn glint in his eye. Klaus trailed behind, wringing his hands, biting his lip, eyes not moving from the blood dripping from Five's limp hand. They got into some semblance of a circle and linked hands where they could, bare skin where a hand couldn't be spared. Allison with Five, Diego holding onto Allison's arm with one hand and pressing down on Five's abdomen with the other, Klaus holding Luther's hand and Allison's arm, and Vanya holding Luther's other hand.
"Wait, what about Ben?" asked Luther. "Our Ben I mean."
"Oh, you know Ben, he can't get enough of us, always clinging about like a limpet," Klaus shuffled his weight, "he's, uh, he's here, no need to make him physically here right now, the ghostly privileges mean he can come along anyway, gotta get some benefits from something for being dead." He gave a high-pitched laugh but his eyes still had not left Five's bleeding side. He let go of Allison's arm to push his long hair back and readjust the cowboy hat.
"Klaus!"
"Fine, fine, yup, here." Klaus gripped her arm again. "We're good to go, muchachos."
Vanya could see Luther gritting his teeth but she didn't know whether it was general frustration at Klaus or nerves.
"Okay. Okay, let's do this."
Luther twisted his hands like he had before and light blue grew around each of them.
"Hold tight!"
They disappeared.
