Not even an hour later after Vanya's ghost had inexplicably turned up out of the blue and they had roused Klaus several times (and then sat with him as he wept relentlessly for the sister that he had lost so brutally; who had died alone, without anyone of her family near and who, despite all of this, was still worried about others) heard an almighty crash from somewhere in the deepest bowels of the house. It was a sound that made the pit in Vanya's stomach grow as a cold wave of dread washed over her. It was a sound that was quickly followed by the rattling of window panes, the roiling of floorboards and the crackle of electricity.

The lilting tones of The Backstreet Boys followed the Klaus & the two ghosts as they scrambled from the bedroom with the man-child tumbling over his own feet in the rush to get out the door as he gripped to the reverberating walls for support. Regaining his balance took a sheer amount of effort that he was not willingly to admit, but when he glanced up he found himself confronted by the rest of the family who had converged on the bedrooms.

"Yo!" Diego greeted as he rounded the corner, having come up from the scullery as the old Umbrella Academy sirens blared, wheezing after so many years of disuse. "What the hell is going on?!"

("These shakes…!" Vanya whimpered, recognising her son's Legacies for what they were; it was like when he had a nightmare or got upset and his Legacies flew off the handle. "It must be Teddy!"

"Wait—!" Klaus gasped in shock, brows furrowed in blatant confusion. "Are you saying that those explosions are coming from—?"

"—Theodore" Luther nodded, shamefully as Allison clung to her bed frame behind him.

"I told you! I told you we shouldn't have put him in there!" Diego crowed.

"Not now, Two!" Pogo snapped, scowling at Diego as he hobbled up the hall to greet the Hargreeves offspring. Diego, at least, had the conscious to look a little guilty & shamefaced at being scolded at a time like this. "We need to get to safety outside of the academy! Go! Now!"

"Y-Yeah…!" Klaus nodded shakily as he followed after Diego and back up the stairs.

"Don't forget Mom!" Luther bellowed after them as he went to help Allison (mute & wary from latest interaction with Vanya) out onto the street where they would hopefully be safe.

"Yeah…!" Klaus fearfully nodded again as he grabbed ahold of the stairwell railing and with an almighty heave, swung himself around & up the crumbling stairs in search of their wayward mother.

"MOM!" Diego bellowed as he ran throughout the twisting & turning crumbling halls as he searched for his mother, panic clearly colouring both his tone and his expression. He had always known that Theodore (& Vanya) were powerful, sure and logically he knew that Theodore had to be packing some real heat considering how he blew up his school. But to actually see it—to actually experience it firsthand? That was a whole other story entirely and to be honest, it frightened him.

"MOM!" Klaus' equally panicked voice bounced off of the walls and echoed back at him as the two searched fruitlessly, until they eventually regrouped on the first mezzanine floor.

"MOM!" Diego cried as he—quite literally—ran into Klaus, "WHERE IS SHE?!"

("She's not in the west wing!" Ben reported, having disappeared off towards that end of the house when they had dispersed).

("She's not outside, either!" Vanya added as she wobbily trotted back up the stairs, still not quite used to her new state).

"…GRACE!" Klaus nodded to his ghoulish siblings before turning to call for their mother when he didn't have the answer Diego was looking for.

"MOM! MOM!" The brothers chorused as they hurriedly searched for their wayward mother (with the few lingering ghosts shooing the spirits out of their place of rest as it came down) and tried to dodge the falling manor as they did so.

"ZVEE [TWO]!" The voice that answered was not their mother.

"…Teddy!" Cold dread pooled in Diego's gut at the odd call. it was odd because Theodore never called him by his number (or, at least the Loric version of it); it was usually 'Don' or 'Don Diego' Something was very, very wrong.

Without much thought to his own wellbeing or the brother at his side, Diego made for the direction of his nephew's desperate cry with Vanya hot on his heels. Fear roiled in his gut like an untamed beast as he tumbled down the stairs with a yelp, only just narrowly missing a chunk of ceiling that dropped from above and threatened to drown him down there too, amongst the splinters & the roaches.

"D-DIEGO!" Klaus spluttered as he raced to catch up with his elder brother, concerned about the sudden change in demeanour which had him practically sprinting for the lounge. "DIEGO! WHERE ARE YOU GOING?! DIEGO!"

("WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!?" Ben roared as Klaus flew down the stairs after Diego, only just ducking underneath the lumps of flying rubble and soaring debris in his attempts to stay alive & get out in one-ish piece).

("HOW THE HELL SHOULD I KNOW?!" Vanya retorted in kind as Diego was nicked by a piece of debris that sliced a thin line along his forehead and began to dribble blood down into his eye, blinding him. Worry painted both faces of the ghosts as they followed after their wayward siblings who had stumbled and swayed through the crumbling house, only to stop where they had been able to catch themselves on one of the many marble pillars lining the living room that was still standing.

"Is that…?" Klaus breathed in blatant disbelief as he peered around the marble pillar.

"…Teddy!" Diego whimpered, staring wide-eyed and fearful at the scene before him as he mirrored his brother's posture behind the neighbouring pillar.

It appeared that Theodore had both escaped from the cell in the basement and had returned to the main floor at some point. Laying on the floor writhing in pain thanks to the electrical wires entangled around his limbs and a shock collar strapped to his throat, Theodore seemed unaware that his wild powers were tearing the house apart seam-by-seam as the faceless blue-clad Keeper stood over him & ruthlessly tortured him. His once chocolate brown iris now shone an eery blue—one far brighter than any star—curly brown locks floated about in a breeze that Klaus could not feel, but in the power that he could see & hear and his skin had paled to such a degree that if he were not moving so erratically, then Klaus would've of assumed that he was already dead. His heart twanged at the sight; heartstrings pulling painfully as he watched, captivated but useless, as the LANE Keeper tortured their nephew.

"KEEPER!" Pogo scolded as he unsteadily shuffled into the room from the shadows with a certain amount of bravery that Klaus did not have. "That is quite enough!"

Instantaneously the house stilled in its shaking as the LANE Keeper stopped his assault on the boy, allowing Theodore to sink back against the floorboards in relief. The Keeper then turned from his quarry who lay on the ground and prowled towards Pogo like a predator on the hunt. As they turned to face Pogo with face unreadable but body still somehow exuding an air of danger, Klaus was overcome with the memories of an incident when they were younger where Dad had locked him inside the manor's mausoleum for days on end in the farce of "training" The haunted husks, the glassy-eyed stares and the ear-splitting screeches of the dead would be forever burnt into his skull and in that moment—that terrifyingly real moment—the Keeper appeared as the mirror image of their late father as they poised to strike again. Them tall, foreboding & radiating with power that made his heart race and he useless, powerless & small with heart aching at how quickly things had gone wrong.

"So" Keeper drawled, stepping over Theodore's twitching form to greet Pogo. "You're 'Zvee' I take it?"

"No" Pogo shook his head in denial as he clutched tightly to his cane, ready to use it at a moment's notice, "I am the guardian of this house that you have so sanctimoniously invaded"

"Well, Guardian" Keeper sneered as they wove their way through the maze of his fallen comrades."Did you know that your wards were hiding a wanted LANE under your roof? Did you know of the serious repercussions of hiding a murderer from the keen eyes of the law? Did you know that your wards are now liable for the deaths & injuries that they have caused over the years, now that their benefactor is dead? Did you know that your precious Umbrella Academy brats are monsters?"

"Keeper" Pogo tried again, leaning heavily against his cane as Klaus shamefully hid behind the pillar with his heart jackhammering in his chest. Even as a child (hero), he had never really been one for combat; he was the lookout, the sneak, the Séance, not the warriors that his siblings were and for that, he now cursed himself. "I understand how upset you are, but I can assure you that none of my wards bare any responsibilities for what happened this past week—"

"—Did you know?" Keeper asked, their voice soft and dangerous as they came to a stop mere feet away from Pogo & the Hargreeves' hiding place.

"…My wards are capable of many great things…much like the LANE children of today, but their powers are…different" Pogo implored, seemingly stalling for time as he choked out the words and his gaze kept darting down to the twitching form of the Theodore where he lay. "Sir Reginald only sought to protect you from the dangers of the world…as well as the world itself"

"Did. You. Know?" Keeper reiterated, now nose-to-nose with the ape.

"…Yes, Keeper" Pogo swallowed thickly as he stared back at his own frightened reflection in the mask before him. "I knew"

Dread pooled in Klaus' stomach as the Keeper nodded once, seemingly satisfied with the answer, before their hand then quickly snapped up and knocked Pogo aside like it was nothing. The ape quickly crumpled to the ground with a pained gasp, far more susceptible to injury in his old age. Unfortunately, he was only allowed to simper for a few moments before Keeper kicked him aside so that their gloved hand could reach down and snap itself around the ape's throat and hoist him high into the air. Keeper curiously titled their head to the side as if studying the pained ape before he quickly tossed him about again; this time across the room with far more force than was necessary. As he flew, Pogo was relieved of his walking cane in the process; his one weapon, his one aid, his one constant companion gone in a matter of seconds.

CRASH!

"A—A'Don…!" Theodore whimpered pathetically as his pained gaze rolled over to watch the Keeper's torture of the who had landed with an almighty crash against one of the coffee tables at the end of the room. Splintering beneath his weight, Pogo gasped & wheezed like a dying fish as his breath escaped him upon impact. Nowhere done with their delicious torture & "interrogation", Keeper pursued with the stun rod cocked and buzzing threateningly in their hand, roaring like the hungry gnats in summer.

ZZT!

"Aaarrrggh!" Pogo thrashed as he was electrocuted, flailing on the ground in much the same manner as Theodore had done only moments ago.

"Stop…!" Tears rolled unrelentingly down Theodore's face as the house began to rattle on its foundations again and the boy tried his best to protect his apish great uncle, even through the pain that rocked him. Cracks appeared in the house much faster now as the Keeper poised the weapon high above the fallen ape (the toss aside had seemingly done far more damage to the wisened old ape than first thought) who seemed to be contemplating his mortality.

ZZT!

"Stop…it!" Clinging to the cracking pillars, the Hargreeves siblings couldn't help the fear that flooded their minds as their hearts were wracked with all-consuming guilt and the shaking of the Umbrella Academy bled into their wobbily limbs.

ZZT!

"STOP!" Theodore roared, making the room around them shake like a quake as the Keeper was yanked high up into the air and thrown across the same room as Pogo had done; only this time, the Keeper was shoved so far across the room that he was crucified on the mounted antlers of Bambi the buck (as named by a tearful six-year old Ben) at the end of the hall. Keeper lay there wheezing as he lay dying with Dad's portrait staring down at them from on high like the god he portrayed himself to be.

"Holy shit…!" Klaus breathed, watching the blood trickle from the Keeper's wounds with an almost hypnotic stare before his gaze quickly jumped back to his powerful nephew across the way.

Consumed by his Legacies, Theodore's back arched painfully off of the ground with nails screeching against the battered floorboards & toes curling—straining—against rainbow socks as the shock collar worked its magic in trying to tame the LANE. Instead, the ceiling began to cave in on them, sheet rock raining down on them like hail. In a moment of distraction, a section far above the heads of the Hargreeves siblings tore itself free from its foundation and free fell onto the unsuspecting victims below. There was no saving the academy now and if they didn't leave soon, there would be no saving them either.

Mercifully however (and with a fair bit of desperate ghoulish intervention), the chunk of roofing was diverted just enough that both the unsuspecting Klaus & Diego were able to survive. The small piece of roofing that did escape the clutches of Ben & Vanya (who, unused to death as she was, still flinched violently as the ceiling caved in on them despite the fact that it mostly went straight through both herself and Ben) was just enough to knock the two mortal brothers to the floor, but not enough to kill them.

Klaus—still woozy from the blow to the head—was the first to rouse out of their living brothers; coming to with a wheezing cough that rattled his frail bones whilst Diego laid still passed out on the ground next to him. Diego only stirred when Klaus frantically shook his shoulder, trying to rouse him as another large chunk of ceiling rained down upon them. But at the rate they were going, they were both about to be pancaked and they likely would have been (like Pogo, whose lifeless feet poked out from beneath an upturned couch at the foot of Dad's portrait) had it not been for Ben & Vanya, who had forcefully dragged the two siblings away from their hiding spots with grunted yell just in time.

"Holy shit…!" Klaus breathed out in awe, staring up at his ghoulish siblings—Ben in particular—with shock clearly written on his face. "You—you did it—!"

("Holy…shit" Ben agreed, looking just as shocked as Klaus that the very thing they had spent the entire doing had actually worked. That their brothers were alive and not crushed beneath cement & sheet rock).

"AAAARRRRRGGGH!" Theodore wailed as the shock collar zapped him again, reprimanding the boy for his use of powers.

("Teddy…!" Vanya wept as her heart ached for her son and she found herself shuffling over to help him).

("Vanny—!" Ben pleaded as he reached out to stop his sister from leaving).

("—Keep 'em safe" She paused for a moment to wrap Ben up in a tight hug—the first one that he had felt in thirteen long years—before spinning on her heel and racing across the house to her wailing son).

("VANYA!" Ben wailed as Vanya threw herself over the upturned couch and surged forward to wrap Theodore up in her embrace).

("It's okay, it's okay, Vera's here, Vera's got you" Vanya cooed into Theodore's ear as she began to hum Teddy Bears Picnic to soothe him just as she had always done).

Although Theodore seemed unresponsive, the twin songs in their hearts sung in concerto and the lumen bubbling beneath their pale skin reacted in concert to each other's Legacies as Vanya prayed for something that would keep her son safe from the monsters who had hurt him. There was nothing she could do to the wires or the collar in this form, but she hoped that her remaining afterlife force would be enough to protect him. She cared not for the broken men at her feet nor did she spare a glance at Pogo's feet which poled out from beneath a section of ceiling as she pulled her son close. Only Theodore was important in this moment, only her son, only him and she prayed to whomever was listening—God, Lore, the Entity, Jesus—Buddha, Allah—whomever could hear her to please, please let her son live.

"…C'me on! C'me on! C'me on! C'me on, Diego!" Klaus called as he quickly scrambled to his feet and slung Diego's arm over his shoulder and dragged over to the back door. Ben reappeared on Diego's other side, sparing one last longing look over at mother & son encased in bubble of bright light that (hopefully) would keep them safe from the destruction that they caused and they awkwardly made their way out of the crumbling house.

Klaus helped haul Diego out through the courtyard doors and out through the maze of secret passageways the he had used in years past to sneak in to the academy. A few harried moments later and the brothers found themselves outside pressed up against the opposing alley wall and clutched tightly to the rattling garbage cans in an effort to stay upright as the academy—their home—crumbled to nothing.

"You okay? Diego—Diego! Are you okay?!" Klaus peppered him with questions as Diego wrapped his brother up in a tight hug.

"Hey—hey! You just save my life, man!" Diego chuckled hysterically as he clung tightly to his brother.

("What the hell?" Ben exclaimed, brows pinched in annoyance that his brother was taking all the credit for his life-saving action).

"E-eh?" Klaus shrugged, silently gesturing at Ben who stood beyond his shoulder, sharing in his confusion but ultimately did not dispute his claims. "Okay, great"

"Shit! Mom! Mom!" Diego suddenly broke from the hug when he spotted their mother standing stock-still in the infirmary window, sadly waving down at them.

("Mom…!" Ben stood frozen in the alleyway as he watched grace stand there in the window, perfectly pristine as if it were just another day. Tears gathered in his eyes as he watched Grace—the only mother they had ever known—sadly wave goodbye with the wettest smile upon her lips as she waited for her death).

"Mom! Get outta there now! Mom!" The brothers pleaded uselessly as they watched their mother and home crumbled away to nothing before their eyes.

At one point, Klaus had to latch onto Diego's arms to stop him from charging back inside after her and Ben was left standing powerless on the sidelines, stuck watching it all. Worry pricked at his dead unbeating heart as he panicked over whether or not the rest of his family had made it out alive. Luther & Allison at had been at the other end of the house when it had all gone down, Theodore & Vanya were encased in that glowing bubble inside the manor which kept them relatively safe and no one had seen Five for a few hours now; Ben could only hold out hope that they were all still in one piece. But until then, they were left standing on the sidewalk just watching the Umbrella Academy fall.