Neither Lila or Five could have ever predicted the scene in front of them. The Temps Commission, the one place that was untouched by the mess that is Time and Space, was in complete ruins. There was no sign of life. The building itself was broken down to the bare bones. Finding Herb's final recorded message was proof that they were all at their rope's end.
The last resort method was to find the Founder. The old fart being no help as he was strapped to his machine. It barely shocked them that the Founder was none other than Five.
"Take it easy on him Five."
"Lila, this is between me and myself so stay out of it. Hmm? Thank you. Now, this Kugelblitz it is not some tiny leak that we can simply fix by patching a couple of pinholes. It is a giant trash compactor which is grinding up the universe and consuming it whole. So tell me how you stop it!"
"Whatever you do..." he started to choke, "don't save the world."
The machine supporting the older Five whirling quieted down. The pumps and lights turning off. The man's breathing became more sporadic and weaker. "What do you mean, don't save- Five! How do I fix this?!"
"He's dead Five." Lila said bluntly after checking his pulse. The two of them were given only a second to take it in before the room started shaking. Faintly in the distance they could hear a siren going off. The two of them jumping when part of the room crashed to the floor.
"The room is breaking!"
"Yeah I can see that! I thought older you said this room was protected against Time paradoxes?!"
"Well clearly he miscalculated something! We need to get out of here before we start figuring out more ways to yell at him!"
"And how do we do that you brat?!"
"How about you look around a little?! Take a stroll while we're at it!" It wasn't from panic that they couldn't see anything that would help them. Probably the only useful thing here was Five's corpse.
Still alive Five stared at his body. The strange, relatively large, tattoo on his bony chest. He didn't know what it meant but he recognized the top section of it. A collection of squares and rectangles. The same that Cielo always had on her briefcase. Taking a knife off the nearby table, he carved the skin out. It had to mean something. Relating it back to her, it had to be important.
"Uh I don't think this is the time to be vandalizing your body!"
"You don't get it. The co-chairperson always had this symbol on her briefcase. It has to have some importance if she and him have these symbols. If only she were here."
It was a useless wish. One that he wanted to come true. If anyone could help Five with all of this, it would be her. She always came to his rescue. Appearing to fix and stop him before he made mistakes. Not that he listened much. But she was there for him. No matter the time nor place, she-
As soon as he finished taking the tattoo off, the only door to the room opened. The two prepared themselves if it was some sort of time monster. Only to have a woman wearing a green watch carrying a large briefcase run inside.
"Old man Five!" She recoiled back seeing two new more bodies in the bunker. "Young Five? Copycat? What are you two doing here? How did you guys get here? Oh wait you have powers, duh."
"The place is collapsing, Cielo!" He'll celebrate her survival after. They had to get out of here first.
"Right right!" She scanned over the room, spotting their briefcase. Quickly grabbing that one and her own before rushing to the pair.
"We can use these to get back to whatever time you want. I suggest the one you come from." She pried opened both of them on the floor by them to start connecting the wires inside. Plugging it to the power cord of Old man Five's machine caused a small blue spark. It'll have to do.
"Wait, will this work? What if we end up in the Jurassic era?"
"Don't worry, this is my briefcase and I'll use this other one to steady the form. I've tuned mine for events like these since the timeline started to collapse. Not only that but Old man Five built this bunker especially equipped to negate time anomalies. It's only collapsing now bec-"
"Chit chat later ladies! We need to get out of here! April 5, 2019!" The two grabbed hold of Cielo's shoulders as she started to punch in all the requirements to get it working. Even with the pressure on her, she worked her magic on the two briefcases almost simultaneously.
"That area in time is too unstable. Too close to doomsday. I'm going to need you two to use a bit of your power on the briefcase to get that exact date. I'll guide the way, just focus on your powers. Got it?"
The two tighten their grip on her. Getting here was hard enough. To think they had to do it again so soon was risky. Not like they had another choice though. They just had to have faith that Cielo knew what she was talking about. Which they had complete trust in. Though all of them were familiar with timelines, she was the one to study it the most out of the three.
Time travel was usually a smooth ride with briefcases. However, this trip, just as Cielo predicted, had given them heavy resistance. There were too many of them trying to leave a place that shouldn't exist. Going towards an era that was doomed. Even her personal briefcase and the protected bunker wasn't enough to protect them. It was only through her specific pinpointing and the two's powers that they were able to go against the stream of Time.
It wasn't a soft landing for the three. They didn't even get a chance to breathe when the briefcases blew up in their faces. The two would have blinked out of the room filling with smoke but were too drained. It took Lila kicking the door down to give them some clean air. They were coughing and trying to calm down from all the rush. As soon as they did, they found themselves relieved to be back in hotel Obsidian.
"Hey Lila! Good thing we found you, Stan just- Five? What happened to you... three? Is that you Cielo?" They raised their heads to see Diego and Stanley carrying multiple cleaning supplies approach them.
"It's me. How are you doing, Kraken? How long has it been? Are we in a hotel? Something about this place seems familiar. Can't put my finger on it. I don't like it here though." She coughed a few more times, shaking her head of ashes.
"Yeah we're in a hotel, more importantly, what happened to you guys?" Stan helped Lila steady herself up to her feet while Diego moved to Cielo. His brother getting up on his own.
"Oh nothing much. Just discovering the secrets of the Commission and that our world is inevitably doomed. How was babysitting?"
"Babysitting? What are you teaching this kid Kraken? How to hide a dead body or something? You reek like the Commission's body removal service workers." She looked at the kid nervously trying to hide their cleaning supplies behind his back.
"No! No, you're imagining things. We're just cleaning. Lila, um you should come help us. Family bonding time. Cielo, Five, you mind?"
"Not at all. Have fun with your corpse."
"No corpse. We gotta go though. See you later." The two men dragged Lila away in a hurry. Leaving Five and Cielo alone in the hallway with a smoking room next to them.
"You think they're hiding a body?"
"My brother and her kid? Definitely." The two turned to each other. Now that it was silent, the two took in that they were together again.
Cielo acting first, tackled him into a hug. It didn't even take a second until he melted into her arms. "I can't believe you're okay. Young Five that's still old but not hooked up to a machine type of old. The Commission was going down and I couldn't find a way back to you... or anywhere. I couldn't even tell if you were still out there. Gosh Five... You're okay."
"I'm okay and so are you. You're okay." She nodded, burying her face further into his shirt. They stayed that way for a few moments. They both needed this moment.
It was always with Cielo that he could relax with despite all the destruction happening around him. Just a few moments. That's all he wanted. But he had to come back to the rush. And she knew that too. They just escaped death. To get time to breathe was considered impossible for these two.
"How did you survive the Commission falling?" She sighed, pulling back.
"It's a long story."
"With all the mess going around, at least you know something that can make sense of it." She slid down the wall, patting the spot next to her. He took a moment to scan her over. It really was her. Though she technically did have her personalized briefcase, she never broke her watch. This was not the version that visited him in 2002. This was his Cielo.
He sat down taking her hands into his. That brought a smile to her face as she leaned back. "Before I tell you everything I need to know, what did your family do this time? Circle and I should have removed all elements that could have created an apocalypse in 2019. Do you know how long it took to reach that point? The amount of recalculating and theorizing that we have to run through? I don't even want to list out every meticulous step we took."
"Does that include killing our moms?"
"What? No? We didn't even consider eliminating any of you despite all the trouble you guys made. We may, or may not, have removed Violinist's ex-boyfriend but in a subtler way. Besides knowing that you were returning to 2019 as well, it would have created a grandfather paradox." She paused as it started to make sense. "No..."
"At least I know it wasn't you guys then."
"A grandfather paradox. That would explain why we couldn't track certain parts of the timeline. They must have either changed or been deleted entirely with your existence. It all happened so fast that it had no way of processing everything to fix. Wow. You guys really went home and went big. This is going to be a lot harder to control than I thought."
"My exact thoughts. Not only that but there's a lot more that changed in our absence. It's not only the Commission that fell."
"Like what?" In his best summary, he explained their past few days upon their return.
From the Sparrow academy and Ben coming back to life as a complete asshole to cows in the field disappearing. He didn't leave out any details. Though in the back of his mind, he was studying her reaction. She was really in front of him. They did this multiple times before. Explaining his entire thought process and experiences came easy when she was the one hearing it all.
Maybe it was because her eyes showed that she was serious to hear him out or because he never had the intention to prove anything to her. There was no point of pretending or giving her respect. He could be himself yet she never turned away. Cielo saw him past all his crude words and barriers. She gained his respect, trust, and most of all she was here. She never once left. Even against the world burning she returned to him.
By the time he was done, he was starting to feel his tiredness get to him. Not only did he perform two temporal jumps, he hadn't stopped working for years. Only having a day to relax before Klaus sprung finding his birth mom on him to finding out the third apocalypse was happening.
"Why must you always get such a short stick?" She gently patted him on his head when he went quiet.
"I'm starting to think that the universe hates me."
"Not the universe at least. Time is the one to blame."
"You speak like it's sentient."
"It's easier to work with Time when you give it more credit. They are really annoying like that."
"Spoken like a true co-chairperson of the Commission."
"Former co-chairperson actually. I lost the election period to be on the board. A lot has happened on my end of things as well. Now I'm a part of briefcase control. I'm only a regular member. The sole member left I suppose. Oh but I guess you, Copycat and even Kraken are former members. Though your brother did leave during orientation." Cielo tried not to show how much it bothered her that the Commission fell. "How much did Old man Five tell you about yourself? Or I mean, his self?"
"Between the shock of seeing who the founder is and his missing arm, we didn't get the chance to talk about ourselves."
"Sounds like Old man Five. You two are so similar."
"I want nothing to do with the lunatic that formed the bane of my existence." She didn't fully agree with his view of his counter self. It was because of the Commission and Old man Five that she was able to survive for so long. Not to mention that they were the reason they met.
"That lunatic is still you. In one way or form. If you had the chance to hear him out, maybe he could have told you more about himself. The journeys that he went through."
"I'm sure that you had more of a positive experience with him than I did."
"When he saved me, of course I had my own questions. How and why did he start the Commission, what about the Umbrella Academy, how to control what he labelled as the Kugelblitz, etc. But the main thing, the first thing I wanted to ask, and the only one he answered fully was... who did you meet in 2002?" He froze.
The start to it all. Who was the woman in 2002 that resembled Cielo down to the t? Five watched as she stared straight at the wall in front of them. Her eyes not really focusing on it. Reasonably, a part of her didn't want to tell him. That woman, like Old man Five to Five, was the reason everything in Cielo's life was the way it was now.
Rather than being a prosthetist that was none the wiser to the apocalypse in 2019, she had to deal with unstable superheroes, all life dying at once, multiple assassinations around her and more. This was not the life for her. Instead her kindness to offer a stranger an umbrella brought her down a rabbit hole she couldn't escape no matter how much she clawed to climb. She blamed the woman in 2002 for every incident she hated her place in the world.
Five had to brace himself for whatever she told him. And seeing that he wasn't telling her to not continue, she had to answer the unspoken question on his mind. "To put it simply? She was my doppelganger and Commission's best executive in her time."
"Past tense?"
"She died. Want to guess what year is equivalent to your time flow?"
"2002." He didn't need to think about it. It was easy enough to guess knowing how messed up their situation was.
To think that the woman he had been chasing all this time had died before he had a shot to find her. But then what about the one with him now? Five had seen it on multiple occasions; there was something underlying about this version of Cielo. He knew that the two were separate people but he always felt that she knew more. Especially in this case.
"She really did want to help you. When you ended up jumping anyways, she decided to... get you help for when you ultimately returned to 2019. That would be me."
Using Commission technology, she managed to input her memories into Cielo's mind. Including everything she knew about Time, Commission and the Umbrella Academy. However, to transfer all her memories into another body was not without a cost. The strain of having all mental functions taken away cost 2002 Cielo her life. All for the hope that she could steer them in the right direction to save the world.
In short, the Cielo right now knew everything that Time could offer locked away in her head. And the main goal of this action? To help the Umbrella Academy.
Finally, they learned the solution to the mystery that binds them together. The answer was not being what they wanted. A life was sacrificed to save the world. It also meant that in a way Cielo, this version, knew everything. Quite literally everything. Which made a lot of sense considering the times where no one could properly read her.
"But if she was an executive then why did the Handler say you were never a part of Commission? I would think that the best executive would have some sort of legacy."
"That would be Old man Five's work. After finding out what she did, he erased everything in relation to me. Memories, records, ISB pathways, everything was made to look like I was completely normal. Can you imagine what would have happened if Handlebar or anyone of the sort found out what was in my head? At the same time, he couldn't let everything I knew disappear from the world. He had Mister fish head recruit me and, well that lead to my role at Commission. As well as save me when everything started failing this time around."
"And where we are now." He weakly banged the back of his head against the wall.
From the start the two were merely puppets to their doppelgangers. Strung along for the sake of time. Now both of them are dead. What they had left for them to work with was her locked away memories and his exhaustion hitting him all at once. Neither would be helpful against a literal black hole.
She squeezed his hand. "He died back there didn't he? Old man Five?"
"Yeah." She removed her hand from his to wrap her arms around him. Resting her cheek on the top of his head.
"I'm sorry that you had to see that."
He rubbed his hand over her arms but didn't pull away from the hug. "Besides some existential dilemma, I'm fine."
She pulled him closer. "I know that you don't have the best impression of him but he really wasn't all that bad."
Their time together wasn't long nor favoured. He had Five's stubbornness and brashness to his words. He knew of the universe's secrets that turned him secretive and rough. Their conversations always had a weight to them. Yet, they had this understanding that didn't need to be said. Cielo knew that Old man Five wasn't evil. He just didn't have any options. He was at the end of his rope until his last breath.
The two turned their heads hearing the elevator doors dinged open. Out walking a very unstable Klaus. "Oh Cielo! You're here! I haven't seen you in so long. And with Five too, how adorable. Am I interrupting you two?"
"Yes you are. Leave." She playfully slapped Five in the arm, unwrapping herself from him.
"It's nice to see you Seance. Is that a hole in your chest?"
He pulled his shirt open a bit more to let them see the hole closing in on itself. "This? Spearhead to the chest. No big deal. I was going to go down to the lobby for a few drinks to brush it off. You two want to join me?"
Cielo shrugged, leaving it for Five to decide. "Yeah sure. We need to hold a family meeting anyways. Let's go."
"Alright!" Klaus, regaining some control of his legs, went back over to the elevator as the two got up.
"Is it bad that I thought he was who Kraken killed?" She whispered.
"No, because I thought the same thing. But he's alive and with a hole in his chest. That's the least weird thing about my brother, I assure you of that. Think you can handle the rest of the bunch at once?"
"How much can you guys really change in the span of a few days? I already love them." She rushed ahead to catch up with her half dead friend. Her smile making him temporarily forget the news he had to deliver in a few minutes. Though it was a bit unsettling seeing how fast she had managed to throw her smile on once Klaus appeared.
When the elevator door opened, entered a panicked Diego, Lila and Stanley. The thought of her getting along with his crazy family was reinforced. But somehow, she wasn't at all fazed by their shenanigans. She was enjoying it.
Getting in the elevator there were a lot of questions that they all wanted to ask. Most coming from the family starring at how the man that was impaled was still alive. That question didn't get much of an answer. Klaus being immortal was expected at this point. The next being in how Cielo was here or who the younger kid was.
"Stan meet Cielo. Cielo meet Stanley, Diego and I's kid." She looked between the two parents. He didn't look too much like either of them. He was also twelve.
"Kid? How long has it been since I dropped you off in Berlin?"
"I'll explain everything to you later."
"Since when were you two friends?" Diego questioned.
"After 1963, Copycat showed up at Commission with nowhere else to go. Sticking around was her only option. Only to give me a huge headache by threatening and killing my workers in the end. The amount of life insurance I had to handle and the constant messages from the new board to kick you out. I'm getting tired remembering it." Lila only chuckled at her friend's exaggerated sigh.
"That's only because you kept insisting to be my friend. Though you did have the best snacks. I could never get enough of the original gobber mints that you got from the 1900's. I expected nothing less from the miss co-chairperson to get them."
"Former co-chairperson." Cielo corrected.
"Rigged."
"Not rigged."
"You didn't have the two best agents in the voting. One of them being a different version of the Commission founder. Rigged."
"The both of you were forced to retire and broke multiple rules. They would have done the same to me for consistently vouching on your behalves. Luckily I have an outstanding record and Grass to back me up. Not rigged."
"You protected us for the greater good."
"At the sake of my mental health." The four men watched the strange pair bicker over some election they didn't understand.
"Are you sure you're both friends?"
"The best!" The two said at the same time.
At this point the elevator doors had reopened on the lobby floor. The rest of the Umbrella Academy already being there. Allison ran up to them as they started filling out of the elevator.
"Where have you all been? We've been trying to get your stupid briefcase back from the Sparrows."
"Well try no further, we already got that one back. It's no use to us anymore."
"What did you do to it?" Allison wasn't afraid to show her anger towards her brother.
"Well since you asked so nicely dear sister, I used it to head back to the Commission only to find out the end of the world is once again upon us. I'm calling a family meeting. Everyone gather 'round."
Cielo and Lila knew what the other was thinking at the mention of a family meeting. The latter jutting their heads to the side. Two the both of them, they didn't really count as family enough to join in. Not like they were missing out. Both already knew the end of the world terms and conditions.
They were going to shuffle to the side with Stanley when their somewhat significant others stopped them. "That includes you two."
Lila shook her head. Already taking a few steps back. "No, we're good. We have some stuff to catch up on."
"You two are family. Come on." Diego was practically pushing his significant other towards the bar as Five held out a hand for his.
The three remaining siblings of the Umbrella Academy eyes' landed more Cielo than Lila. More so on why their brother was holding her hand. Viktor took a step forward. "Cielo is that you?"
"Hi Violinist! Quite the reunion I would say. Spaceboy the same. Ah but I don't think I ever officially met you Rumor. The only chance we could have was when you were bleeding to death and the end of the world too close by. Not that this time is different. I'm glad that you recovered well though." Cielo approached Allison first as she felt the need to calm her hostilities.
"Oh right. That was a really long time ago for, probably, the both of us. You're the new Commission head now, right? Good, can you tell us how to get back to our timeline and fix everything?"
"Well for that, there's both good news and bad. Good news, um there is a cause that makes logic sense. In theory I can study it and find a solution. Bad news, the Kugelblitz is all theory. I'm still working on said solution."
"What is a Kugelblitz?"
"That's what your family meeting is about. Anyone down for a drink? You're probably going to need it for what we have to say." All but the former Commission members were confused enough to follow them to the bar.
Five acted both as the bartender and storyteller. Giving them the proper drink with the explanation of how everything was doomed once more. For someone that often mocked his siblings for their less than intelligent selves, he answered every question they had with no sarcastic comment. Every once in a while getting some silent confirmation from Cielo. Between handing them high percentage alcoholic drinks and explaining the basics of a Kugelblitz, no one's hopes were high.
"The best plan is to go back in time and eliminate the paradox. Destroy whatever it was that took out our mothers and stop the Kugelblitz before it starts, but we can't do that. Briefcases kaput."
"And why the hell can't you just jump us out of here?"
"Last time I tried that we all got trapped in time. Do you really want to risk that again?" Five placed a wine glass filled with fruit juice for Cielo.
"And what about you? As chairperson or whatever, isn't there anything you can do?" Allison turned to Cielo.
"There are two briefcases here which is good. Though their conditions aren't ideal. After one of them stops smoking, I plan to examine them to see if I can get it somewhat working. Can't promise anything. The timelines in this area are so unstable that even getting us here from the Commission was risky. Not to mention we don't know what killed your moms. A time frame of nearly 30 years, technically more, with no location? To determine such and send us there? I can't do that, I'm sorry."
"Okay so what's plan B?"
"We can't reverse the effects but we can try to find the source. Plan B is to get to the Kugelblitz and somehow find a way to contain it. That way we can at least put a stop to the people erasing. To put simple. Lot harder than it sounds for everyone's information. Cramming it into a box isn't going to be sufficient."
"So first, we need to study it. The patterns and if it has any weaknesses. If we can find it that is." Five threw a shot back.
"Well how hard can that be? Big apocalypse causer. What would it look like?" The three Commission members looked at one another. None of them knew. There was no part of the manuals that explained how the Kugelblitz would look like. It was all in theory.
"Uhh Miss co-chairperson?"
"Um in my personal opinion the closest thing I can think of is a collapsing black hole? A miniature star perhaps? A massive force that expels energy that you wouldn't normally find on Earth. Something we would only see in sci-fi movies. There is no for sure way to know right now but we'll know it when we see it. Hopefully." Her answer didn't bring ease to any of them. If anything it only made things harder to deal with.
Speak of the devil, the Kugelblitz gave off another pulse. All of them freezing feeling the power wash over them. They heard the few people in the lobby turn to dust. One second the place was filled with life. The next, empty. Save for the few that actually knew what took the unsuspecting victims.
"Cruel mind it has." Cielo mumbled. She reached over the counter to grab one of the shot glasses Five already prepared. Dumping it into her juice as she already was feeling a headache.
"What the hell was that?"
"That was a Kugel wave. It's getting worse."
"How long do we have?"
"This rate of escalation, factoring in-"
"How long Five?!" He paused at the unfamiliar rage of his brother.
"Hard to tell. Cielo?"
She glanced down at her watch. There had been less time since the last burst. The intervals were getting shorter. "I would say 4, maybe 5 days. I don't know how much will be left at the 5th day mark though. Probably only this hotel if we're lucky."
She didn't miss Allison's reaction to the shockwave. The poor woman silently going off to the side. Her family didn't notice as they were trying to settle their own emotions. This doomsday was different from the ones they faced before. Instead of a one shot kill, they slowly realized what it actually meant to cause an apocalypse. Lives lost. Beautiful environments became desolate. The ability to choose a path was no longer a thing.
Apocalypse meant that all the things that made them human were robbed.
"We should have given them Harlan."
"Luther..."
"What about Harlan?" Everyone turned their attention to the new component being added to the equation.
"The Sparrows said that if we turn him over we can end the fighting. Then, you know, work together to save the world. But if we didn't-"
"We tried to make peace. A-and then the step-siblings from hell attacked, kidnapped you and they tried to kill us. I mean we can't trust them. Working together will be like trying to defuse a bomb by pouring gas on it; it's only gonna make things burn down faster."
"But don't we need the big, bad, glowy thingy in their basement?" Cielo slapped Five's arm at what his brother said so nonchalantly. What he described was the closest visual depiction of an anomaly they can get.
"Klaus, do you know where the Kugelblitz is?"
"Oh yeah I saw it. When I went to visit dad. It's in the old storage room where mom used to keep all our luggage."
"In your home? Of course it appeared where you guys returned." Five nodded at her speculation. Ignoring the bickering of Klaus and Diego.
"Makes it easier for us. Now that we know where it is, we can study it with what little time we have. First we have to stop it. We'll worry about getting all the lives back afterwards."
"The Commission too. But if the Kugelblitz is in your basement, your family has to come to some sort of deal with the Sparrows. Something tells me that only saving the universe isn't enough."
"That's probably up to if we hand over Harlan. Viktor- Where'd-" The family looked around seeing that Luther and Viktor had gone off on their own. They got up from the bar to follow them. Only hearing a small part of their conversation.
"Covering what?" Five asked as they all walked over to them. "What's going on?"
Viktor shook his head. "He didn't mean to hurt anyone."
"Really? You mean, when he did this?" Luther pointed to his cut face. This sent his brothers into a frenzy that Viktor was quick to shut down. But they weren't having it. Not only did Harlan kill 2 Sparrows, he hurt their brother. There was no way they could be convinced the old man wasn't out to hurt them all.
It was a matter of logic versus moral to the majority of them. Handing in Harlan meant making peace versus the guilt of having to choose murder. Save 7.8 billion strangers or the one person that means everything to another. That was Viktor's choice to make. And his family was a terrible influence in forcing him to choose on the spot. As much as he argued that there was a different way, he couldn't beat logic.
"What and risk losing some of us in the process? Harlan is insignificant." Cielo bit her tongue back at Five's statement.
"You told me once that no one is insignificant." Viktor scanned over his family. None of them wanting to budge on their decision. "They'll kill him."
"Uh so? We are talking about one person versus saving billions of lives here. I mean, is this really a debate for you people?"
"Hey, Little Britain? You don't get a vote."
"Lila lives in this universe too. Besides, she's family now. Kinda sorta. And that includes Cielo too. What's your thoughts about all of this Miss time head?" Klaus asked.
She looked away from the group. "You- you guys don't want to know what I think."
"No, no Viktor needs to hear this. Tell him Cielo." Five thought that their past relationship would help convince his brother to follow their lead.
Cielo walked a bit away from the group to stand next to Viktor. "I agree with Violinist. Handing over the Bargain point is not feasible."
"What-" She raised her hand before Five could continue.
"Violinist is correct in handing in Bargain point will only lead to his death. While that may give the Sparrows some piece of mind, it will not solve the issue that all of you seem to be forgetting."
"The issue being?"
"The Kugelblitz. End of the world."
"Yes but if we cooperate with the Sparrows to hand over Harlan, then we can get access to it. Put a stop to it."
"How so? Punch it the Kugel as you put earlier?" Cielo challenged the oversized man. She sighed. This wasn't the new board or the Handler she was dealing with. Force like this wasn't going to work. "Sorry didn't mean to sound condescending. It's just- in the end all possible routes this exchange can go don't end well. I see the benefit of cooperating with both Bargain point and the Sparrows. I don't see the need in providing useless fodder for a, less than sound, alliance. They will not become your friends simply because you want to make peace."
"What about the alliance is so bad? Sloane, Ben and the rest of them have equal to lose as we do."
"No they don't. Look around you Spaceboy. You have all your siblings alive. Even your dead brother came back to life. You started a Romeo and Juliet type of romance. The same Sparrow has half her family and her messed up father who will gladly sacrifice her. The Horror? Same case but the people here love a version of him he never was. The other two don't even have a real relationship with the Umbrella Academy. You all had time to go through 2 apocalypses. What about them? 3 days was all for them. So I ask you, which family is more desperate to return to their lives? Who has more to sacrifice to get that back?"
She only looked at Luther. Number 1 of the Umbrella Academy. He will always try to act as the leader. With the power of superhuman strength, who better to carry his family? The bridge between families and a voice of reason in all the mess. Cielo hoped that the one who sought peace would see her point in avoiding more bloodshed. Instead, he only looked at her with disgust.
How could an outsider even suggest that she understood what all the Hargrevees went through? Umbrella or Sparrow didn't matter. They both wanted to save the world in his eyes. That's why it wasn't cruel to get rid of Harlan. He wasn't one of them. Neither was she. The last person he wanted to hear from was someone that was part of the problem.
"Then what do you suggest we do?"
"Either stop trying to save the world or get your heads out of your asses. Your plan with the Sparrows has too many holes. Everyone here has something at stake with this world disappearing. There is no way everyone will come out of this happy. Sacrifice your happiness or someone else's. Who I'm referring to is up for each of you to determine. Until all of you learn everything that is necessary, decide with all that you know in a way you won't regret. Do not follow someone else's will because you can't bring it to yourself to understand all the risks."
She went back to the bar to return her empty glass as the hostilities rose. She could already feel Five's confused glare at her back. Wasn't the first time that making hard decisions was on her.
"Where are you going now?"
"To work on the briefcases. You guys should decide what you want to do. I'll do what I do best." Cielo waved one hand back as she heard a familiar zap sound behind her. To her surprise it was Lila that jumped.
"If you're going to fix those briefcases, you're going to need your best agent."
"That I do." The two girls didn't listen to their significant others trying to call out to them as they blinked away.
