13

The Choice Of A Boy

Five was unsure of how long they drove, the window outside turned to dusk and then turned into day as they stopped for short rests. He could see Allison's bags under her eyes getting bigger as the sleepless nights drew on. Even as each minute passed, Claire was still in danger and it was that adrenaline that kept them going. It must have taken around two days or so to get back to the city.

He was half tempted to blink out into the street as Allison screeched the car outside the academy's gates, however he got out of the car normally knowing that he would need her help. As they ran up to the front gates, they were both shocked by the sight that greeted them. The doors were half caved in, shattered glass littering everywhere. He had attacked their home.

Five's worry grew, it grew bigger and filled his whole body. Ripley had attacked his family, and who knows what else.

The pair of them were careful as they stepped over the glass. If the outside looked bad, then the inside was worse for wear. Five looked at the walls and noticed that there were scuff marks on them, a spot of blood that had dried brown smeared along the floor and a few ornaments had come tumbling down, smashed to pieces along the floor.

"They must have fought our siblings." Allison said as she looked at the damage.

Five nodded in agreement.

"It doesn't sound like anyone's here." Allison's eyes widened as she looked towards the staircase.

She was right, it didn't sound like there was anyone here. The whole house was silent, like it had been when Reginald Hargreeves had controlled the household.

"They have to be. We need to find them and hopefully find Claire," Five said, trying to reassure his sister. "I'll check upstairs."

He blinked away and headed to the bedrooms. Up here, the whole house seemed quieter. As he walked past a window he saw a few clouds drifting like a trail in their wake. It felt peaceful, it felt too peaceful. Five checked his bedroom first but there was nothing amiss except a note that was on his desk. It looked like it had been placed there recently.

Five, when you get back. Let's all do something together.

It was signed with all of his sibling's names except Allison. They had been waiting for the pair of them to get back together. Five gripped the note tightly in his hand and ran a hand through his hair.

He began to blink to all of his sibling's rooms one by one, hoping that he would find them there. In Luther's, he found a record still on the turntable. The needle was off. There was no dust covering it. In Klaus's, he found clothes strewn all along the floor, however the other bedroom's showed no sign of life.

When he had finished checking all of the bathrooms and noticed that there was no sign of life, he decided to go back to Allison. As he was about to blink downstairs, his wounds throbbed and he had to support himself on the nearest wall. The few days rest hadn't helped at all.

Instead of blinking, he walked down the stairs taking them a few at a time. He still hurt but he felt like he would have done more damage if he had used his powers. As he walked down the stairs, he noticed Allison walking out of the lounge. Their eyes met and she shook her head.

There was no sign of them downstairs either. Where on earth could they be? Five was sure that Ripley had said that he would be back at the academy. That had been their only clue.

Five walked over to Allison, wincing as each step sent pain running through his body.

"Where are they?" Five asked.

Allison grimaced. "There is one place we haven't looked."

"Where?" The only place that came to mind was the courtyard for Five.

"The basement." Allison said.

Five had known there was a basement but he had never been down there. It had been off limits when they were all children, but Five had wondered what was down there. Allison led him over to the elevator and pressed the button. The doors opened.

Five walked in admiring how it resembled an industrial elevator, like the ones he had seen in their missions in buildings of no importance. Allison joined him and pressed the button to go down. The silence felt loud between them as the elevator began it's long descent, the machinery whirring with clicks and clacks as it pulled them underneath the academy.

The elevator landed with a thud and it shook as a little as the doors opened revealing a dimly lit basement.

The lights flickered as the two of them emerged into a large room that resembled a military bunker. The walls were reinforced concrete, like they were supposed to contain the downfall of mankind. Five's attention was diverted to the end of the room where a giant door sat, there was a window that let him see into it, enclosed in it were Claire and his siblings. He walked closer and saw Claire sat near the door, knees up to drawn up to her chest. Klaus had an arm around her. Claire looked relatively untouched except for a split lip where blood was seeping from. The rest of his siblings were along the back wall of the cell/ cage; Five wasn't sure what it was.

Diego was leaning against the wall nursing a dislocated shoulder and an abused pride. Luther was on the floor, mirroring Claire's position. There was a person missing: Vanya. Five had an inkling if she was here, his family would be in a very different situation. He had seen how powerful she was, hell she had brought the apocalypse on the world but he would never blame her for that. If there was anyone to blame for that, it would be Reginald Hargreeves.

"Claire!" Allison shouted, running past Five, her hand reaching out towards the glass. Allison banged on the glass with such intensity that his siblings looked towards the door at the noise.

Claire barrelled towards the door, banging on the other side. It was silent on their end of the door but Five could see Claire's tears and her mouth screaming the word 'Mommy' over and over again.

"I'm coming baby." Allison said, trying the door. It stayed shut, Five noticed that the normal mechanism which was a turn lock, was padlocked. Allison didn't notice the lock at first as she kept banging on the door until small beads of sweat appeared on her neck. Her eyes then noticed the lock.

"Shit," She whispered. She turned to Five, eyes welled with tears. "Get her out." She clutched Five's shoulder and Five could feel the warmth of her hand. It was stupid with the situation that they were in and the fact that their family were locked away in a cage but he wanted to stay like that. Human touch was something that he had missed, it was hard to admit.

However his need for human touch was irrelevant right now. He pulled away, nodded and blinked into the cage.

"Uncle Five!" Claire said with a whimper as she ran over to him and hugged him. Five gave her a smile. Now that he had blinked, he could feel the pain screaming all over his body but he would ignore it, for her and for his siblings. He didn't matter.

"What on earth happened?" Five asked, keeping a hand on Claire's shoulder as he looked at his three brothers.

Diego walked over with a glare. He was limping as he walked, one of his hands gripped on his shoulder.

"Your absolute nutcase of a friend came back with Claire in tow, he got the best of us. I've never seen someone move like that before. He was holding back in the diner," Diego shook his head. "I thought at first that he might be another of us but it turns out that he's a crafty bastard that's very quick on his feet."

"It's my fault," Five said, looking down at the floor. He felt Claire squeeze him hard and he was thankful for it. "He attacked me in L.A when I was in Claire and he," Hurt him? Beat him? Five Hargreeves had a pride streak that he was proud of, although it had been tarnished by the horror that was the apocalypse he was still prideful. He had always been able to hold his own in a fight but he had been beaten by someone from his older self's past.

"He beat all of us Five. I expect he wouldn't have had a chance against Vanya." Diego said, leaning on the wall and moving his arm up and down.

Vanya, she was their trump card and they would have to play her on the deck. The only problem was where was she?

"Vanya?" Five asked looking around the cell to see if the woman could be hidden somewhere.

"She hasn't been around the academy for a few days, I think she had something to sort out with her orchestra. It's just our luck that she's gone." Luther said with a sigh as he got up from the ground.

"Well we have all of us now, we can fight him." Five said although if this man had beat the majority of his siblings, and he wasn't sure how. How on earth would they all be able to beat all of them?

He shook his head, they had two more members. His siblings had all been competent fighters when they were young and he highly doubted that had disappeared but he still worried, because in the end they had all died the first time around.

"We're not in the best shape Five, but we can help." Diego agreed.

"I'll jump you out, starting with Claire." Five gave Claire a nod and she smiled despite the tears he could see in her eyes.

As Five turned to the door he saw Allison peering through the glass, however he saw a figure behind her. Time seemed to move slowly as he began to prepare himself to jump but the man lifted an iron bar and it cracked down on top of Allison's head. She crumpled to the floor.

Five let out a scream that he didn't even know he was capable of, and he jumped to the other side of the door. He ignored the screaming protests of his limbs and leaned down to see Allison's on the ground. He kneeled down and cupped her head, there was a big gash on the top of her head that had begun to ooze blood, the trail beginning to appear on the floor.

"Allison," Five shook her arm but she was unresponsive. No. No. He had just got all of his siblings back, he couldn't let it end like that.

He looked up at Ripley who had draped the iron bar across his shoulders. He was smirking as he gazed down at the pair of them.

Five got up to his feet, he knew the promise that he had made to his older self, that if he was to fail that he would give up this body that the both of them were fighting over, however he was still here. He was going to fight.

A rage he had never felt before, filled him. It was blind hot, and he realised that the rage wasn't just his, it was his older self as well. He stared over at Ripley and looked around to see if there was anything he could utilize to his advantage. There was nothing until he caught sight of the iron bar that Ripley was now banging against the floor. If he could get the iron bar off Ripley, then he would have a chance. It was a chance that he was willing to take.

He prepared his jump, calculating the area he needed to go and appeared on top of Ripley's shoulder. It took the taller man by surprise as Five wrapped his legs around his neck, the boy pulled the iron bar out of his grip and then jumped again, appearing back on the other side of the room.

He was about to jump again when his legs screamed and body hurt. He gasped and fell to his knees. He was so stupid! He had barely survived the first fight with Ripley and now here he was again, hurting, but what choice did he have?

"You're really going to fight me again? After what happened last time? You're as crazy as me, Number Five!" Ripley laughed. So at least they both agreed on one thing.

"Yes." Five spat. He had hurt his sister, hurt his family. Fuck it, he knew he shouldn't be putting his body through so much pain but fuck it. His family needed protecting.

He launched himself towards Ripley, the iron bar raised high above them. Ripley stepped quickly out the way, his footsteps light as a ballerina's. Five had to steady himself before he went flying back into the wall.

"Honestly, you've really forgotten how to fight Number Five. At the commission they said you were the best assassin, and arguably the best fighter but look at you, you can barely keep up with me!" Ripley shook his head and began to walk towards him. "Then again, that was when you were older. Are you really trying to pretend you're a kid again, a person like you?"

Five didn't reply. What his older self had done didn't matter anymore. What did matter was his family. His feelings didn't matter anymore, he had found himself in this mess and he was going to get all of them safe. He didn't matter.

"I can still fight." Five said and took a deep breath before he stepped forward and landed a low punch into the abdomen of Ripley's stomach.

Ripley wasn't expecting it as he winced and clutched at his stomach.

"I'm impressed, we're finally getting somewhere." Ripley smiled but then attacked with another powerful punch of his own. He aimed for Five's eye. Five wasn't quick enough to dodge it. Ripley's fist connected with his eye and the boy toppled back clutching out his eye. It stung. He put his hand up and realised that he was quite screwed. No, he could still fight!

With one of his hands over his eye, he ran up to Ripley and lifted the iron bar with his spare hand. However that was where Five had made a mistake. Ripley was taller and grabbed the bar. He smirked and kicked Five hard. Five barrelled over and dropped the bar.

The next thing Five knew, all he could feel were punches and kicks, they hurt but he was drifting into blackness. The blackness was comforting because he couldn't feel anything here. Then he was falling, falling and landed with a thud on a dusty floor. He looked up to see that he was at the library, back in the apocalypse.

He looked up to see his older self sitting across from him.

"Well?" His older self prompted.

He sat up and huddled his knees.

"Well what?" He huffed.

"You lost. He's too strong for you. We made a deal."

Five looked up to see his older self walking over to him. He half expected the man to pick him up again, but instead the man sat next to him.

"But isn't he too strong for you?" Five replied. "He took out all of his siblings, except Vanya."

His older self chuckled at that. "I don't think anyone could beat Vanya. She's more powerful than all of us combined."

"But what do we do about him then?" Five said, shuffling his foot in the dirt.

"He's fast, which is a problem. However he's not invincible. You have to catch him off guard, you got some punches in didn't you?"

Five gave his older self a sideways glance and noticed that his older self was smiling. That was new.

"Yes, but he still beat me." Five replied.

A wave of misery permeated the air. He had lost, maybe he was going to die without protecting his family.

"He hasn't beat you yet. Perhaps we should make a new deal."

Five blinked and turned his whole body to face his older self.

"Why?" Why have you changed your mind , was what he really wanted to say.

"It is still impossible for us to exist in this body, but the more I watched you control this body, the more I remembered what it was like to be young. Maybe if Ripley hadn't attacked our family, I would have given you the chance to grow up but it's too late for that now."

"So what are you suggesting?" Five asked.

"We are stronger together. I know how to fight him, he's not unique, there were many commission agents that fought like him. They were taught by an instructor who excelled in quick combat. However there are downsides to the way he fights, the more a fight draws on, the less power he will have. His moves are quick, to take out the opponent quicker."

"Stronger together? What are you suggesting and why are you telling me all this?" Five questioned.

"The deal I want to make is a simple one, I will help you fight."

"In exchange for what?"

"There is no exchange, we help each other and then see what happens. It may break Allison's rumours, it may not."

Five thought for a moment. If he took this deal now, he wouldn't know what would happen. Would he disappear? Would his older self disappear? The way things were going at that moment, he would die along with his older self.

"Deal." Five said with a nod. He wasn't important, his family were going to survive and he was going to make sure that happened.

His older self smiled and reached out his calloused hand, Five put his smoother one in it and they shook hands.