8:25pm, Monday April 1st, 2019
There was of course the the distinct possibility they would all be torn to pieces at the atomic level. That the crackling blue energy which engulfed and protected him whenever he jumped through a wormhole would fail, leaving them at the mercy of a wrathful universe.
He saw no benefit in sharing this information with the others.
Therefore to say the worst thing that could happen was their adult consciousness being transposed into childhood bodies was perhaps one of his more impressive lies, but he sold it and they believed it, joining hands and putting their faith in him. Then again the alternative was incineration via moon rock, so.
He wouldn't know which was the lesser evil until he tried.
The shield itself had always been the easy part; instinctive, like drawing breath. Now he grimaced with the effort expended at making it large enough to encompass them all. He'd never done this before, wasn't even sure it could be done and he had about two minutes to make it work before they all died. No pressure. There was a tense moment before his power responded, a shimmering blue light raining down over them, that thin membrane of energy all that would separate his family from the raging oblivion on the other side.
Now for the hard part. He told them to hold on, that it would be 'messy'. This was another gross understatement; it was a great day for falsehoods.
At least he did not promise that everything would be all right. He was not that great a deceiver.
He took a deep breath, reached out with the awakened part of his mind and touched the fabric of the universe. He could feel the time-stream flowing all around him like water, quick rushing torrent of endless probabilities, incalculable number of choices and paths and alternate timelines spider-webbing out of each other in the great fractal pattern of TIME, forming the basic tapestry of reality. For all that, there was no chaos here. It was in fact the very opposite of chaos, every possibility mapped with mathematical precision. One could find any timeline, any choice and any variable down to a single blade of grass provided one had the proper equations to do so.
He'd spent a lifetime studying those equations and still barely understood them.
He thrust forward, grabbed a hold of the elemental threads and tightened his grip as they twisted and writhed like living things. He held on by metaphorical fingernails and began to pull, screaming with the effort of bending universal forces to his will. The universe didn't like it when he did this; man wasn't supposed to be able to tear a hole in the fabric of space and time. Wormholes existed but they were organic, a natural aberration of the status quo. Five was unnatural; a thing that shouldn't exist but did. They all were, to varying degrees. He understood this better than his siblings. Not because he was smarter - though it was a fair cop - but because he could feel how creation protested being warped and twisted around him. The others were the same, to a lesser extent. Diego shouldn't be able to bend the laws of physics. Allison shouldn't be able to alter reality. But these were small Events, isolated anathema. Tiny flaws that could be overlooked in the grand woven tapestry of the universe. What Five could do held the potential to shift entire timelines, to unmake the tapestry completely.
Five was an abomination and the universe tried to kill him every time he jumped. The greater the leap, the harder it tried (one of the many reasons it was so exhausting). This was the biggest leap - and thus the biggest risk - he'd ever attempted.
Again, he kept this knowledge wholly to himself.
He pulled with all his strength, feeling his mind start to bend under the strain and then pulled harder because the moon was falling and his efforts would be for nothing if he could not get them away before impact. Finally the universe relented and tore apart in his hands with the electric smell of ozone, the walls of quantum reality separating beneath the relentless thrust of his will.
He gathered his siblings and pushed them through the fissure he'd created. They blinked away a fraction of a second before the theater was blown apart. But in this game, a fraction of a second was all he needed.
They hurtled through the primordial chaos of subspace, cradled womb-like in the protective bubble of Five's energy shield. All around him he could feel the universe's fury, the way it clawed and bit at his defenses, seeking to break them apart. It was taking all his effort to keep it at bay and steer them in anything approaching the right direction. Even so, he could feel his siblings starting to slip away from him, the shield that was their only protection against being ripped apart by the time continuum beginning to thin. He'd pushed himself to his limit, possibly beyond it.
"Hold on!" he screamed again, no idea if his voice could even be heard so he gripped their hands more tightly, his own shaking and slick with sweat. He couldn't lose them now, he'd come too far, gambled too much. He would not be the reason his siblings died. I won't fail them again, he thought, jaw clenched so hard his teeth nearly cracked.
It was going to be very close.