Klaus wasn't sure what came over him. The gunfire had brought back horrible memories of Vietnam, the sight of Vanya's pale, pale corpse reminded him of her ghost who appeared before him only hours earlier and the sight of his siblings huddled behind makeshift shelters…it all just sort of swirled together to create this surge of protection that he had not felt in years. Tears of frustration beaded in his eyes as he clambered back to his feet (thankful for Luther's warning to hit the deck, just in time to miss the bullets aimed for his head) and silently snarled at the enemy how no one would take any of his family ever again. In his determination, he never noticed how his hands glowed a brilliant blue, powers responding to his overwhelming emotions as he just…let go.

And just like that, Ben appeared before him, conjured from the nether in an equally brilliant blue and together the two brothers let out a mirrored yell as they attacked as one. Ben lifted his shirt, releasing the Eldritch monsters that dwelled within and those tentacles easily ripped themselves through the bodies of the Echoes, cracking spines in half with a flick & crushing Mogadorians to dust with a twitch. Everyone else could only watch on in shocked awe—even Five—as the rain of bullets came to an end and their brothers took out the Echoes like they were playing a game of Pick Up Sticks.

"Oh my God…!" Luther breathed in awed shock. "It's him! It's—it's Ben!"

"Ben?" Five murmured, eyes wide. The last time he had seen his brother was that fateful dinner all those years ago. They had been so young then; so naive.

"Benny…?" Allison mouthed as she slowly clambered to her feet, back still pressed to the beam as if to keep her upright. None of them could believe what they were seeing. Ben, their deceased brother, there and whole and fighting for them.

"Now, whose the lookout?" Klaus couldn't help but smirk as Diego jumped to his feet and raced after Cha-Cha, tackling her out of the door and back into the street where the two proceeded to beat the shit out of each other.

It didn't take long for the Séance and the Horror to deal with the assailants, picking them off four-by-four until only one was left; one who had slipped their way through the cracks and made it over to Theodore. At the very least, their mask was now gone, so they were able to see who lay hidden beneath all that black cloth. And as Ben faded back into the nether, the pulsating waves of light faded to nothing as Theodore recognised who stood before him.

"H-Helga?" Theodore rasped, eye blowing wide at the wisps of blonde hair that had escaped now that her mask was gone. His gaze roved over her figure, easily taking in the visage she painted and although he had suspected as such, being confronted with something so damning was still hard to swallow. "You're—you're an Echo?"

"How astute of you, Garde" Helga sneered, training the firearm on his forehead with a finger hovering threateningly over the trigger.

"So, all this time it was just a lie? All this time you just wanted to kill me?"

"That's right" She nodded, pulling the trigger. "And today, I will slay the Banshee"

BANG!

"NO!" The distressed cry wrenched itself free from Five's lips before he had even known what to do. He couldn't lose another one of his family, not again, not now when they were so close to the end. But he needn't have worried because the single shot fired from the Echo's bullet melted mere centimetres from Theodore's eye. Instead, the orange glob that the leaden object had become now sat forsaken on the floor.

"And you couldn't even do that" Theodore sneered from where he sat crouched over his vera, cradling her body close. "Do you want me to show you how to do it properly?"

"Don't be ridiculous!" She laughed, "You're not a killer! You don't have the balls to do that! You won't kill me!"

"No?" He laughed coldly, "I suspect I can because, afterall, it is just one of those days"

"Try me, marcest [bitch]!"

Raising his chin in defiance, Theodore sucked in a deep breath as blue swamped his vision. Loralite wormed its way through his veins like a rushing river and making them all the more pronounced as he cracked his jaw and began to scream. It was a haunting tune that came out, not unlike that which had toppled Saint Gregory's; but unlike before, he did not care for casualties and he cared not for control. A vindictive grin stole over his lips as he watched (seemingly) through someone else's eyes as Helga's hands snapped up to protect her bleeding ears, only for her entire boy to be slammed back against the warehouse wall from the force of the sound wave.

She wasn't alone, of course, because the sound was one that reverberated throughout the warehouse and thumped within your bones like the beat of a thousand drums. Light began to gather at his chest, blooming there like flower in spring as a white parlour washed over him from head-to-toe. In much the same manner as Vanya had been painted all white, Theodore too, soon found himself garbed in that other worldly aura which promised only harm to those who dared to oppose.

"If we're doing this, we gotta do it now!" Five warned, eyes blowing wide as large cracks spiderwebbed their way across the walls of the warehouse and the floor under their feet began to roil. He may not have known just how his nephew's powers worked, but it didn't take a genius to know that this was bad news. Bad enough that the Echo—still plastered against the wall—now looked supremely nervous, and downright terrified of what Theodore was currently doing.

"Oh! Welcome back!" Luther sassed as Diego eventually hauled himself back into the warehouse, looking far more bruised & battered than he had before. "Where were you?"

"Honouring a memory" Diego replied, sparing a brief glance at Five who seemed to catch his drift. "So, how are we ending this thing?"

"We surround him, all right?" Luther replied as the Hargreeves siblings huddled together, "We come at him from all angles"

"So, it's a suicide mission?" Klaus quirked a brow in question, hands on his knees as he peered into his brother's expectant eyes.

"Yeah, but one of us could get through" Five reasoned, well aware that they were all more or less signing their death warrants. "But it's the only chance we've got"

("So, if we don't do this, we're definitely going to perish and if we do do this, we might perish?" Ben mused aloud, "Sure, why not?")

"Are we all in?" Luther asked, glancing around at his siblings, looking for agreeance and acceptance of this ludicrous, world-ending plan.

"Yeah" The brothers chorused, nodding as one even though they each wore varying expressions that were both unreadable and easily comprehendible. None of them wanted to do this, but it was one life in exchange for billion. Much like the Trolley Problem, the solution was obvious.

"Allison?"

Allison, on the other hand, did not agree. Perhaps it was the mother in her or the fact that she like she had failed her sister again, but either way she could not find it in herself to kill the only link to her sister that she had left. Furiously shaking her head in denial, Allison could only glare at her brothers with incredulity plastered across her features—Diego in particular, who earlier in the week had been all for protecting the boy but as soon as Mom had perished in the collapse of the Umbrella Academy, his loyalty towards boy had shattered.

"…Diego, take the left. I'll take the right and you two, go from the centre" Luther sighed tiredly, ordering his brothers about with an ease that was reminiscent of their Umbrella Academy days. The others easily all split off, listening to their Number One as they took up positions as instructed and barely spared their sister a backwards glance as they did so. The ones did, were filled with pity and sorrow, ones begging for forgiveness for what they were about to do.

"…!" Allison whacked Luther's arm in irritation, unable to believe that her brother would stoop so low.

"I'm sorry, Allison" Luther paused for a moment to apologise, "But there's no time. If he continues like this, then the world goes up in flames"

The banshee scream swelled as Theodore bellowed out unto the heavens with a feral noise that conveyed all of his pain. He seemed lost to his power now, unable to stop (if the the streaming tears were anything to go by), but also unable to let go of his pain/power. Light continued to swirl about him, under his skin and over his clothes, turning him into the alien he supposedly was. Power emanated from him, painting him in an eerily beautiful light that was only enhanced by the moonlight that shone down through the cracks in the roof and peered through the gaps in the canopy. If Vanya was to be the White Violin, then Theodore may have been a Banshee—just the Echo had said—a Banshee whose swan song would soon end them all. It was clear to anyone listening that he would soon the climax and knowing this, the Hargreeves brothers quickly charged for the boy, intent on taking him down.

"GET THEM!" Luther ordered as the brothers charged for the singing boy. But they barely made it within reaching distance of them as Theodore's attention quickly swung from the Echo who had been pushed back towards the opposite wall, and over towards them.

NO! Theodore inwardly cried and suddenly the light that had been pulsating outwards was now being drawn inwards. An uneery calm settled over the warehouse with only his alluring voice to pierce the silence as light continued to gather at his chest, blooming their like a flower and swirling like a sun.

All he wanted was for his dons to stop in their pursuit, to stop them taking his vera away from him and so between this breath and the next, he attacked. His scream took on a guttural growl that was so visceral it hurt (he could feel his vocal cords vibrating with the force of the song), and Theodore found himself unable to hold onto his control any longer. He let go. All the pain, all the hurt, all the grief; it caved in on itself until it burst from his chest and latched onto the charging me and suspended them in the air on the end of four lumen tentacles.

Allison hesitated where she stood, just watching the scene play out like a bad soap opera. Where she had first thought Vanya's message to be one of salvation & destruction, Theodore's was one that promised grief and revenge. It pulled at her heartstrings, tugging them taut as she watched her nephew tear into her brothers with the same sort of ease that he used to raze both the Umbrella Academy and Saint Gregory's Royal Academy previously. Looking at him like this, she could admit that it was a scary thing and she knew she couldn't let it go on, even if it pained her to do so.

In retrospect, it was likely a good thing that she had hesitated because she was the only one not subjected to the attack, but even watching from afar was terrifying; watching her brothers die was terrifying. Heaving a deep breath, Allison slowly made her way over to Theodore as she pulled out the pistol she had taken from Five's waistband whilst he had been preoccupied earlier. Clicking off the safety, she positioned herself behind the boy and trained the firearm at the back of his head. Mercifully, he seemed too wrapped up in his own grief to notice her, but still, Allison couldn't find it in herself to pull the trigger.

I'm sorry for what we did to you, I'm sorry that you suffered. But it's time to end this, now. Allison silently apologised (to whom—mother or son—she didn't know, but she felt it was right) as she spared a glance over at her brothers who remained suspended in midair, their life forces draining from them in twisting little motes that almost looked like stars. Again, she fought with herself about slaughtering such a young and (not so) innocent boy; one life for many. His life for theirs.

I hope this works, PLEASE let it work! Praying to anyone that would hear, Allison closed her eyes against the blaring light and moved the pistol from the back of his head and settled it up next to his ear. Letting her breath hiss out from between clenched teeth, Allison pulled the trigger.

BANG!

One shot, that was all it took and all at once, everything seemed to stop. Theodore dropped the Hargreeves brothers like a sack of hot potatoes, the light which had been gathering in his chest shot heavenwards and his body buckled beneath him as he passed out atop his mother, for the second time during that evening. Quickly tossing aside the pistol, Allison moved to cradle her unconscious nephew, laying him out in her lap as she settled in next to her deceased sister; her sister who looked so peaceful as she lay there, and openly wept for all that they had lost.

Allison wasn't sure when she was rejoined by her brothers, only that when they did, they looked far more pale and shaky than she remembered. They rushed over to their little huddle (absently noting that the lone Echo and Cha-Cha had long since vanished in the commotion) and tried to gauge what had happened to their family.

"Allison?" Luther called as he dropped to her other side, hands hovering over both Vanya and Theodore in turn, "Is he—is he alive?"

"Yeah…" Allison mouthed as she nodded in relief, tears dripping down her cheeks when her fingers reached under his chin to find a pulse. It was weak, but it was there. There was no use asking after Vanya, it was clear as day that she was already dead.

"He is? Yeah?" They all shared a collective sigh of relief at that. Although they had been gunning for him only a moment ago, none of them were particularly keen on the idea of murdering a child—superpowered nephew or not.

"Oh, thank God!" Klaus breathed as he sat collapsed backwards onto the ground and starfished there, trying to catch his breath.

"We did it…!" Luther exclaimed breathily, unable to believe that people as disfunctional as them had done so. "We saved the world!"

("But Vanny…!" Ben mourned, already missing the woman who had been there—who had held him—only hours ago).

"Oh, man…!" Klaus sighed.

Allison clung to Theodore, weeping softly into his crown as she mourned the loss of her sister; crying for the woman she would never truly know and for the boy who had lost his mother far too soon. Next to her, Diego seemed almost stationary as he stared down at Vanya's unmoving, unblinking corpse as if not quite able to comprehend what he was seeing. But whatever the case, Allison thought that the hysterical laughter was uncalled for.

"Uh…Guys?" Klaus hedged, as he tilted his head just so to stare through the gap at the ceiling. What had been a nice view of the starry night had now turned into something far more concerning. "D'you see that big moon rock coming towards us?"

"Oh, that's not good…" Luther mumbled as he and Diego encroached on Klaus' personal space to stare up at the sky together as Five paced in the background.

"So, this is it, huh?" Klaus muttered as he clutched tightly to the dogtags around his neck. If he was going to go out in a big ball of flaming fire, then he wanted to be close to his loved ones when he did. "So much for…saving the world!"

"If only Sir Reginald could see us right now, huh?" Diego added just as sombrely. "The Umbrella Academy, a total failure"

"At least we're together at the end" Luther tried to look on the bright side, "As a family"

"…This doesn't have to be the end!" Five piped up, thinking aloud as he paced.

"What? What are you talking about, Five?" Diego asked as the trio turned to stare at their schoolboy brother.

"I think I have a way outta here, but you gotta trust me on this" He half-explained, raking a hand through his hair as he tried to calculate the necessary parameters for taking so many passengers along with him.

"…Yeah, I don't think so" His brothers on the other hand, were less receptive of the idea.

"No"

"Nah"

"Well, then, we might as well accept our fates because in less than one minute we're going to be vaporised!"

"…What's your idea then?" Diego quirked a questioning brow at his brother.

"We use my ability to time travel, but this time I take you with me" Five replied, trying to herd them in closer together.

"You can do that?" Klaus asked.

"I don't know" Five admitted, "I've never tried it before"

"What's the worse that could happen?" Diego asked, already liking the idea of living.

"You're looking at it" Five gestured to himself, "A fifty-eight year old man inside a child's body, so there's that"

"…Oh, what the hell? I'm in!"

"Yeah, whatever, me too!" Klaus agreed.

"Me too!" Luther nodded, "Allison?"

"Mm" Allison nodded her agreement as she pulled her head out of Theodore's crown.

"Cool, what about Ben?"

("Oh, I'm coming!" Ben nodded enthusiastically, not quite ready to say goodbye to his family or spend years alone in the apocalypse, just yet).

"Yeah, great, he's in!" Klaus relayed the message to those who could not hear him.

"Okay, great" Five clapped his hands, a smile twitching at his lips. "Luther, grab Theodore"

"Wait—! Should we be taking him with us?" Luther puzzled as everyone huddled together, gripping tight to each other's hands whilst Number One hoisted the boy up into his arms. "I mean, if he's the cause of the apocalypse, isn't that kinda like taking the bomb with us?"

"The apocalypse will always happen" Five explained slowly, as if talking to a child. "And Theodore will always be the cause, unless we take him with us and help him"

"But what about Vanny—?" Klaus protested, eyes grazing over their sister's blank-eyed form.

"—I'm sorry" Five shook his head, "There's—there's no point, she—she's already dead"

("Vanny…!")

"Now huddle up!"

Scrunching in close, the Hargreeves gripped tight to each other's hands, standing shoulder-to-shoulder, looped together in a chain as the moon debris grew ever closer. Five grit his teeth and scrunched up his face in concentration as he tried to open up a portal that would be big enough for all of them to pass through. . In his head, he recited the mathematical equations necessary as if they were a prayer of his own. Grunting at the effort that it was taking, Five stared up at the familiar blue that hovered over them as it grew lower & lower around them, engulfing them like a raging bubble and in his mind's eye, he watched as his siblings seemed to age backwards with every second that passed. Ben reappeared, Luther lost his broad-shouldered stance and Diego was scar-free for once; it was like looking at a photograph or going down memory lane, only this time it was more than just nostalgia or insanity that pictured them like that.

"IT'S WORKING!" Luther called as he drank in the faces of his siblings one last time.

"HOLD ON!" Five shouted over the gale force winds and the fire that burned in the background, gripping tighter to the hands in his until even his knuckles hurt. "THIS IS GONNA GET MESSY!"