A/N: We're back! Sorry for the delay - I spent the last month and a smidgen sick as a dog, and it took quite a while to budge the worst of the symptoms and get back to work. But here we are with our latest chapter, the first of the final three.
Read, review, and above all, enjoy!
Disclaimer: urgh.
From his lookout post at atop the Hargreeves Tower, Sir Reginald Hargreeves looked down at his kingdom with mounting disbelief and wondered how the hell it could have gone wrong so quickly.
Barely an hour ago, he'd sworn that the Umbrella Academy would be dead by dawn.
Now, with sunrise inching closer by the minute, they were all still alive, and worse, they were now wreaking havoc across his perfect world.
Ever since he'd sent out the assassination squads to dispose of them in the most exemplary manner possible, the comm channels had been practically screaming with one bit of new bad news after another, to the point that he'd started to wonder if some subversive had replaced one of the secret police dispatchers and started feeding everyone falsified reports just for a laugh. But then, of course, the news had spread further than the radio – and become visible to the naked eye.
Before tonight, he'd loved to look out upon the city and know that no greater artwork had existed in human civilization before he'd plucked the concept of it from his imagination and imposed it upon reality. It was a perfectly symmetrical artwork of shadowed glass, moonlit concrete, and blazing neon, a monument to efficiency as no human could have envisioned it. Business ran like clockwork in an unending dance of profit and loss, armies of accountants and economists calculated its budgets and revenue with unthinking precision, factories forever churned out the products needed to fuel its economic growth and sustenance, and crematoria swallowed up the harmful byproducts of the city, purging the useless and the dissident from existence. Before tonight, Reginald could look down upon it with pleasure in the knowledge that he'd made it happen, and nothing human had been involved in it: no media outlet protesting the "barbaric exploitation of children," no social workers blocking his efforts on "moral grounds", no politicians returning his bribe money, no public that could ever forget about the good he'd done them, no human beings telling him what to do – just his world, as he had made it.
Now it was on fire.
From up here, he could clearly see that countless districts were dotted with tiny beacons of burning buildings and destroyed streets. Some of it was due to misfired ordnances, some of it was due to catastrophic mechanical problems, and yes, a good deal of it had been inflicted by the Umbrella Academy… but most of tonight's damage had been dealt by Reginald's own citizens, inspired to rebellion by the undesirables he'd tried so hard to cleanse once and for all.
They were all over the city now: some of them had been ordinary rioters inspired by the sight of Luther on the march, lured out of their houses by the sight of gunfire bouncing off him; some of them had been condemned victims that Diego and Lila had rescued and armed, and in turn, those doomed men and women had been inspired to arm and recruit their neighbours; some of them had been convicts that Number Five had released from prison and led on a charge through the Industrial District, recruiting the graveyard shift and freeing the convict work crews to join their ranks – not to mention overloading enough machinery to leave several factories as little more than blazing wreckage. A rare handful of the rebels had even been spiritualists inspired by the sight of Klaus floating into the night and raising the dead wherever he went. But by far the most annoying had been the ones induced to rebellion by Viktor, of all people; for some reason, people seemed to find the sight of the apocalyptic violinist rising into the night with some bimbo on his arm inspiring and had followed him to war simply because the notion of music free of censorship and control appealed to them.
And that, in many ways, was even more infuriating than the news that the Umbrella Academy had recovered their powers. For Reginald, it took the efforts of a fully-staffed propaganda department, a suitably intimidating secret police force, and the reality-warping machinery of the Hotel Oblivion to twist public opinion in his favour… but somehow, Viktor – a neurotic personality-deficient failure – had managed to achieve a following without even trying.
Then again, it wasn't as if the discovery that the Umbrella Academy had somehow regained their powers hadn't proved a nasty surprise.
Reginald still wasn't sure how their Marigold had returned to them after being extracted and separated from them by an entire timeline, but the fact remained that they had… and all of them were using their powers to undo his hard work – directly and indirectly. Every moment they remained alive, every second they continued their worthless existence as loose stitches in the fabric of his perfect world, the more unstable it became. And doubly frustrating, no matter how determinedly he tried to modify the machines, he couldn't just edit the Academy out of existence.
If they continued to live, his world was at risk. If they disrupted further, the world itself would almost certainly collapse into madness once more, and Reginald would lose everything. And worse still, it appeared that they were on their way here to speed the process along: they were here to kill him and seize control of his life's work, in that order – for if there was one defining trait of the Umbrella Academy, it was an obsession with past wrongs and neuroses.
But as long as Reginald was still in control of this tower, he would not surrender his hard work, nor would he give them the opportunity to get within reach of his machines to kill him. He would lead the barbarians at the gate straight to him and his armies before he allowed them an inch closer to the seat of power.
No more would he overlook the madness from above, not when his forces below were already lining up around the tower to protect it. He would join them and lead the defence of his throne and his empire.
He would fight to the bitterest end of all.
As he left the tower, Abigail looked down on him pityingly.
Reginald still didn't understand just how long she'd been at work from behind the scenes: he'd grown complacent in victory, too used to being the puppeteer unopposed, unable to recognize when someone else was pulling his strings – or, in this case, pointing him towards the wrong stage.
He thought that they'd all be charging towards the Hargreeves tower from street level on some gloriously heroic march, leading rebel armies right into the mouths of his cannons, where they could all be exterminated at once.
Even if the Academy wasn't following Abigail directions, they still wouldn't be doing that: after all, Diego and Lila were travelling with their daughter, Viktor had his new girlfriend to keep safe, and none of the others were heartless enough to throw away the lives of their mortal allies on a suicide charge, not when they'd be more effective and safe sabotaging Reggie's empire (especially now that the secret police had all withdrawn to the tower).
No, any daydream of the Umbrella Attacking the Tower at ground level in force was just Reggie's ingrained lack of empathy for his underlings talking: he assumed the Academy was just as callous towards their new allies as he'd been to any of the nannies who he'd served up to take the brunt of Viktor's infantile temper-tantrums. He assumed that anyone with power had to be as just as cold and wasteful as him.
It was heartbreaking, in a way, that her husband had fallen so far in the last century that he couldn't even recognize kindness and care in others, much less himself.
In fact, the only army approaching Hargreeves Tower at street level was the army of the dead, a vast horde of glowing spectres gathered from every single prison, torture chamber, mass grave, and crematorium in the city, all pouring towards the tower to enact just revenge on the regime that had sent them to their deaths.
For an added dose of amusement, the newly proclaimed General in charge of this army had delegated the leadership of this indestructible legion to Jean and Gene Thibedeau, presumably because Klaus been close to the two of them prior to their murder. Would Reginald, upon seeing the happy couple at the head of the army thundering towards the tower, remember that the suicide-inducing dream he had tried to force upon the Umbrella Academy had featured Jean and Gene in charge of an apocalyptic cult… or would he be too furious over everything else to recall and appreciate the bitter irony?
Once he'd found these ghosts to replace the garrison he'd left to protect the Red Level, Klaus had sent them out while he busied himself with finding the rest of the family and making his way back underground – for that was where the little fragments of knowledge that Abigail had imparted would guide them.
The roads of the city were not limited to those on the surface: the entire metropolis was honeycombed with a vast network of sewers, catacombs, subways, access shafts, and secret tunnels creeping out from the base of Hargreeves Tower like the strand of a spider web, inch ever outwards into the bowels of Reginald's empire and growing bigger every month. It had been meant for the sake of surveillance and profit, to allow the criminal element to build their own hidden red-light district and occasionally permit his spies easy access to the houses of his citizens. Now, that gargantuan warren was now allowing the Umbrella Academy and their loved ones a hidden path into Hargreeves Tower.
Now, all Abigail had to do was make sure everything they needed was prepared for them by the time they arrived and be ready to play her part when necessary.
The rest was, for once, entirely in the hands of the Umbrella Academy.
"I heard a rumour that those guns are too hot to hold."
Two guards immediately dropped their suddenly white-hot rifles with a yelp of pain, fresh blisters and burns suddenly blossoming across their hands. In shock, they looked up at the figure striding down the passageway towards them, clearly not expecting the intruder that now stood before them; they were only token resistance, a patrol left down in the guts of the city to make sure nobody without a permit from the Red Hat Commission could trespass on the financial district's underworld.
Otherwise, they might have recognized Allison.
"I'll give you one chance to run," she said calmly. "After that, I can't make promises. That's as fair as I can be right now."
The guards looked at each other, silently weighing their options, and went for their utility belts – but only one went for his sidearm. The other grabbed a walkie talkie and had just enough time to bark out a coordinate before Allison finished her sentence:
"I heard a rumour you shot each other."
Instantly, the first guard spun around and took aim at his comrade, his eyes wide with confusion, his movements wild and jerky – as if the Glock in his hands was directing him and not the other way around. At the same time, the second guard turned and pointed his walkie-talkie at the first guard, the handheld radio instantly transforming into a handgun as he did so.
A shower of gunfire later, and both men were dead.
And then, just as Allison was starting to think it was safe to continue onwards, there was a sharp blast of a whistle from the two forking paths behind her: four more guards were charging down the access corridors, two for each passage, no doubt drawn off their patrols by their unlucky comrade's final message.
For a split-second, Allison's imagination failed her: she wasn't sure what she could say that could affect all four guards across the two separate corridors, and the more time she devoted to thinking about it, the less time she had to utter a Rumour.
She was still thinking about what she was going to say when a mob of ghostly sewer-workers floated up through the floor, grabbed two guards by the ankles and dragged them down into the concrete. While they were tangible enough to exert force, they were still incorporeal enough to float through solid surfaces, and unfortunately for the guards, the same rule didn't apply to them: all at once, the two gunmen found themselves pressed flat against the concrete with the weight of at least a dozen people imprisoning their arms and legs, pinning them in place. And from all around them, more ghosts poured in from above and below, latching onto the guards' arms and legs and dogpiling against their torso, slowly crushing them against the concrete floor. In the end, they piled on so quickly that the guards didn't even have time to react except for a high-pitched yowl of pain as several thousand tons of force began to press and pull at them from multiple directions – until the screams ended with a wet crunch and a triumphant cheer.
All of this had taken no more than five seconds.
The remaining guards, having heard the screaming, paused in mid-charge and reached for their radios – just in time for a wave of invisible force to yank them off their feet and slam them facefirst into the ceiling with a satisfying crack-pop! And as their bodies slopped back to the floor, something else descended with them, floating down from one of the access shafts to land unsteadily on the filthy concrete.
This apparition was dressed in the bloodstained remnants of a what had once been a very nice gold silk robe, a pair of sewage-stained flip-flops, a secret police bandolier, and a purloined secret police officer's cap that added about four or five inches to the mystery man's height. But even with all these very blatant eccentricities on display, it was still too dark to recognize him until the stranger spoke:
"Allison!" he gasped. "Are you okay?"
Allison blinked. "Klaus?"
"Yeah," Klaus panted, as he hurried over. "Sorry I'm late, just had to get through all these goddamn sewers. I actually went to your house first, but you'd already taken off by then, so I had to go looking. Had a fuck of a time figuring out where you where, but hey, all the ghosts were queuing up to keep me posted, so what the hell – once I figured out you were headed in the same direction I was, it wasn't so tricky. I mean, yeah, finding the right tunnel was a pain and I ran into a couple of patrols along the way, but I picked up this sweet hat, so I'm not complaining just as long as I never have to-"
"You're here?" said Allison. "You're actually physically here right now? I'm not hallucinating this? I haven't lost my mind or started tripping from all the methane fumes down here?"
Klaus smirked. "It's nice to know I'm not the only member of the family who gets to ask those questions these days. Yeah, I'm real and so were all those ghosts back there. Sorry about the mess by the way: maintenance team A and B have an absolutely raging hate-on for the secret police after the last purge of the utilities sector-"
"But you're here? You're here in the flesh?"
"Pretty sure, unless I've started tripping balls."
"But you said you couldn't forgive me for what I'd done! You said you didn't want to see me again!"
Klaus at least had the decency to look embarrassed. "Well, I couldn't just leave you to the secret police, could I?" he asked sheepishly. "Besides, I'm getting the feeling that whatever's been happening tonight, we're not supposed to be going it alone."
"Wait, you mean I'm going to be seeing the others again? Now? Without even getting a chance to apologize to everyone first? Oh god, I am so not ready for this…"
"I know, sneakers and a tracksuit? Not exactly your most fashionable option, sis."
"Jesus, you're one to talk. Bloodstained robes with a bandolier and a lieutenant's cap might just be the craziest thing you've ever worn apart from my skirt… and maybe that Halloween costume in 2009."
"Hey," said Klaus, faux-indignantly, "I'll have you know I stole this hat from a captain, not a looey. I have some standards! Secondly, dressing as a hybrid of Sally Bowles and Frank N' Furter was not crazy: if you'd been paying any attention the first time when I was free to make my own Halloween costumes, it was a fucking cosmic inevitability!"
In spite of herself, Allison let out a guffawing snort, driven as much by relief as mirth, and collapsed into a fit of giggling that she soon found herself almost unable to stop.
"Not that one," she gasped between wheezing, heaving laughs, "the other one, the one with sequined heels and the bald cap with the fake purple mohawk and the… and the… nipple clamps!"
"The one with the flesh-coloured codpiece and the pink strap-ons attached to the boots?"
This time, Alliison couldn't even form words: all that emerged from her mouth was a hysterical squeak of laughter. She hadn't even remembered that part about that demented Halloween costume, it had been so long ago.
"That was the costume from 2010," said Klaus, seemingly oblivious. "Yeah, that might have been a bit weird even by my standards. In my defence, bath salts were still a thing back then."
It took Allison a good twenty-five seconds to finally stop laughing, and by then, the reality of what had just happened was finally sinking in.
"So… you forgive me then?" she asked. "After everything we said last time we spoke, you're honestly wiling to give me a second chance?"
For the first time in a long while, Klaus looked genuinely sombre. "Not to play rules lawyer or anything like that, but the last time we talked about this, there wasn't a second chance waiting for any of us: no way out, no chance of making anything better, and Reggie's thought police breathing down our necks – we were screwed, so there wasn't much point in trying to set up a reunion when everything that'd gone to shit was still on repeat. Now it looks like everyone in the world's getting a second chance, including us, and I'm not just talking about getting our powers back bigger and badder than ever. I mean, I don't know if you saw anything weird after you got your mojo back, but I had some fucking crazy visions back there. I got to see people I never thought I'd see again, say everything I'd never got a chance to say the first time around, maybe even find… something closure-adjacent."
"Closure-adjacent?" echoed Allison.
"You know what I mean. But the point is, we're all getting a second chance at everything: saving the world, saying goodbye to old friends, putting guilt to rest, yadda yadda yadda… so, maybe it's time we gave each other a second chance as well. Kinda silly not to right now. I mean, I'll understand it if you're sore over everything I said and you want to give it some time before you can oof!"
The rest of Klaus' sentence was lost in a surprised gasp as Allison threw her arms around him and dragged him into a massive hug.
"How much further, daddy?"
"Just a couple more minutes, sweetie? We've just got to get through this sewer gate and we'll be there."
"Oh. What do we do when we get there?"
"We'll work it out when we get there, Gracie. Now shush for a second: mommy and daddy need to think for a minute."
Gracie nodded and promptly fell asleep, slumping down until she was practically draped over Diego's head like the world's most bewilderingly shaped hat. In all fairness, it was past her bedtime, and after all the excitement of the evening plus being given a piggyback-ride through the sewers, she was plum tuckered out.
Diego and Lila eyed each other.
"How good are you at hotwiring security gates?" he whispered.
"Decent enough. What about you?"
"Well, it's been a while and I've never been up against Hargreeves Foundation-class security ratings. Maybe you could handle it…?"
"I know for a fact that you know enough not to tip the alarms, dear."
"Yeah, but I'm carrying Gracie right now. It's gonna be a bit tricky to get this gate open while I'm wearing her like a Madi Gras head."
"You could just give her to me, you know."
"And risk waking her up? Come on, let Gracie sleep."
"Yes, but I hotwired that car back in the warehouse district."
"And I hotwired the motorbike back at the dockland district – the one with the nice sidecar that Gracie really liked?"
Lila rolled her eyes. "You're just gonna keep waving that victory flag all night, aren't you?"
"Come on, honey, you gotta admit we looked damn cool on that bike. You and me absolutely rocked the Last Crusade look."
"…when did you see that movie, by the way?"
"1999, why?"
"Because I refuse to believe that Reggie would allow you to watch that. I mean, the stick up that guy's arse had a stick up its arse, but even he'd have known enough to know you'd have been making jokes about him being Sean Connery for the rest of the month. Christ, you'd probably be quoting 'don't call me junior' too."
"Of course he didn't. Pogo smuggled it in on my birthday."
"Awww."
"So, are you gonna hotwire the lock or not?"
"Look, I can manage it, but I might not have the tools to- what was that?"
As one, the two of them turned towards the opposite end of the tunnel: somewhere in the darkness just beyond the most distant of the overhead lights, there was a muffled crash of a manhole cover being opened and shut at high speed, followed by the sound of echoing footsteps making their way through the distant passageways beyond.
Diego automatically drew a knife from his belt, even as Lila purloined one of her own, and took careful aim at the distant chorus of thuds and clunks making their way through the tunnel towards them.
And from somewhere in the distance, a voice said, "Luther, are you sure this is the right entrance?"
"This is where the woman in white told us to go, so… well, not so much told us, but instincted us to go. Is that a real word? Because I think it should be a real world. It sounds real: instincted. Instiiiiincted…"
"I know, Luth, but we don't know what we're heading into. I mean, 'all roads lead to Hargreeves' and all that – I know the saying, learned it even after all those years I spent locked up in a mental hospital, but there's gotta be some easier routes than this."
"I promise you, this is where my instincts are telling me to go, and if the woman in white's guiding them, it means we're heading in the right direction."
"How's your head, by the way?"
"Just fine, thanks. Migraine's stopped, so that's always a plus."
"Some things you just shouldn't bother headbutting, Luther."
"I'm just saying, it looked like non-reinforced concrete."
Diego and Lila exchanged glances.
"Luther?" Diego called (as quietly as he could without waking Gracie). "Is that you?"
There was a pause, and then the two of them felt the distinctive mid-air ripple as Sloane began playing tricks with gravity. A moment later, Luther and Sloane crashed to a stop in front of them, the former stripped to the waist with his upper body on full display, the latter dressed in the remains of a hospital grown held together with bits and pieces of stolen body armour.
"Diego?" Luther asked. "What are you doing down here?"
"Same as you, big guy: following weird visions. I see you found Sloane at last. What happened to you, by the way?"
"It's a long story," said Sloane. "What have you been up to all evening?"
Lila chuckled in spite of herself. "It's a long story. I'm guessing nobody here has any idea what's actually waiting for us on the other side of this gate?"
"None. All we know is that it's got nothing to do with Reggie and that's good enough for us."
"Fair enough."
And it was at that moment that, just as Diego thought the situation couldn't get any stranger, that Gracie stirred from her slumber, looked up from the back of Diego's head, noticed the new arrival, and let out of a delighted scream of "UNCLE LUTHER!"
"Sweetie-"
"And who's she?!" Gracie squealed, pointing excitedly at Sloane.
Luther smiled. "This is Aunt Sloane, Gracie."
"I HAVE AN AUNT NOW?"
"You know," said Helen, "if you'd told me yesterday that my evening was going to end with us creeping down a sewer passageway-"
"You'd have called me a liar?"
"No, I'd have just wondered if I'd saved up enough for a decent night out at Red Level. If you'd told me the evening was going to end with us creeping down a sewer passageway to Hargreeves Tower, now that's when I'd have called bullshit."
In spite of himself, Viktor smiled. Now that she'd adjusted to the shock of accidentally joining a revolution and discovering that the first chair violin of her orchestra had superpowers, Helen had finally gotten her old snark back; it was good to hear her spouting the same dry wit he'd known her for back in his home timeline, partly out of semi-misguided nostalgia for the old world (as crappy as it'd been) but mostly because it was good to know the experience back at Viktor's apartment hadn't done any serious emotional damage.
Besides, he needed cheering up every now and again… especially now.
By now, they had reached the final barrier between the sewers and Hargreeves Tower, and unfortunately, it was by far the toughest of all of them: a reinforced steel bulkhead had been erected at the far end of the passageway, complete with a powerful electromagnetic lock that could clearly only be opened with a keycard – and there were no guards in sight, so the chances of finding someone around who had the card were not looking promising.
Viktor could easily tear through the bulkhead with a single sonic blast from his violin… but the trouble is, it would be equally easily for him to accidentally bring the whole tunnel down on top of them before he had time to conjure a shield. And though it wouldn't be too difficult to just punch a hole in the bulkhead without risking a cave-in, it would almost certainly cause a shitload of noise even if the door wasn't alarmed, and with Reginald's forces amassing at street level barely twenty feet above their heads, Viktor needed to be careful.
Quite apart from the fact that he was trying to avoid collateral damage, the simple fact remained that he wasn't invincible and he sure as hell wasn't a god: he could probably leave a sizeable dent in Reginald's army if the worst came to the worst, and probably even bring down the entire tower if he was in the mood to strain himself, but if he was caught off-guard before he could shield himself – or if Reginald deployed something too powerful even for a sonic barrier to hold back – he'd be dead without ever knowing what had hit him. Besides, ever since Viktor had experienced the vision of the woman in white, his instincts had been leading him towards Hargreeves Tower by the subtlest methods on offer, so here he was.
But how to break down the bulkhead without collapsing the tunnel or setting off an alarm? He hadn't seen any guards since he and Helen had arrived in the sewers, so finding the keycard wouldn't be possible without backtracking and possibly getting lost. And sabotaging the lock or rewiring the mechanism didn't seem possible, in part because the last time he'd tried to hotwire anything he'd almost been electrocuted and had spent the next hour looking like Klaus after he'd licked that battery.
So, what the hell was he supposed to do, short of just saying "fuck it" and blasting the door open, alarms be damned?
And just as he was starting to wonder if using his powers like an oxyacetylene torch would work on a bulkhead that was probably at least several feet thick, there was a muffled clatter from somewhere behind them, followed by something that sounded uncannily like bare feet on the concrete floor – extremely wet bare feet at that. And judging by the sheer quantity of sounds, there had to be an entire army heading through the tunnel towards them.
As one, Viktor and Helen turned, violins at the ready, Viktor hoping against hope that he'd be able to retaliate against this barefoot army or whatever it was without accidentally alerting everyone within a mile radius of the tower. But then he saw the figure gliding through the darkness towards them, and he lowered his violin.
It was Ben, tentacles fully extended and carrying him across the passageway with improbable grace, each of them wetly slapping the concrete floor as they vaulted him along. Other than that, he looked astonishingly composed: he looked ready for action, his hair perfectly combed and styled, his clothes freshly laundered, and even his leather jacket was immaculate. But it was more than that, Viktor realized, for there was something new in Ben's eyes, something that had been missing ever since they'd been reunited with him in the new timeline of the Sparrows. The emotion was so alien to Ben's face that it took a while for Viktor to recognize it for what it was: calmness, acceptance, composure – serenity, even.
From the moment he'd been reintroduced as a member of the Sparrow Academy, Ben had never appeared calm for any reason whatsoever: even when he was safe or at rest or remotely close to contented, Ben never seemed capable of relaxing. He was never truly at peace with himself or current circumstances, for he always seemed discontented and angry about something, always eager to climb higher than his current level, always irritated to be sitting still and always bitter that someone might be holding him back. His posture was always tense, for even when he was sitting or leaning or slouching, there was always a taut muscle somewhere, as if he was ready to draw a knife or go for the jugular at a moment's notice. Even his smiles seemed tinged with venom.
Now, there was something about him that Viktor hadn't seen since the original timeline, back when Ben had been raised alongside them, before his new upbringing had corrupted him into the viciousness of the Sparrow Academy. In fact, Viktor had last seen Ben wearing that look in the depths of his own mind at the tail-end of his torture in Dallas, when Ben's ghost had sacrificed himself to draw Viktor back from the precipice of insanity.
The sight was so shocking that Viktor was left staring in disbelief, unable to think of a response as Ben finally thundered to a stop directly in front of him. He was even more astonished when Ben abruptly threw his arms around him and dragged him into a bone-cracking hug.
"You have no idea how much we've missed you," he said.
Viktor goggled incredulously. "We?" he echoed.
"Let's just say that Reginald made a lot of mistakes, and the biggest of them was allowing two Bens to exist in the same reality – one from the Sparrows, one from the Umbrellas. Now, we're together in the same body, learning from each other."
For a moment, Viktor could only stare. "You mean… you're him? You're-"
"Your brother," finished Ben. "The Ben you grew up with. Just as I'm the Ben you always wished you could be better."
There was a pause.
And now it was Viktor's turn to throw his arms around Ben, hugging him fiercely for fear he might vanish if he were to let him go.
"Good to see you missed me as much as I missed you," said Ben airily, with just a hint of his Sparrow Academy incarnation.
"Oh, shut up and let me hug you."
"Who's your friend, by the way?"
"This is-"
"My name's Helen," said the violinist, with a wry grin. "I'm your future sister-in-law."
Ben blinked in astonishment. "Pardon?"
Viktor, who'd been on the verge of tears in that moment, let out a snort of laughter. And with that, he grabbed Helen by the shoulder and dragged her into the hug, and the whole gathered dissolved into an explosion of desperate, joyous laughter, driven by relief just as much as genuine mirth.
They weren't alone.
They'd never be alone again.
All roads lead to Hargreeves, so the saying went in this insane reality.
Just as the streets crept inexorably towards the Hargreeves Tower, so too did the sewer networks and catacombs, until they finally ended in the subbasements and crept inexorably towards the upper floors in a monumental column of stairwells and elevator shafts, until they finally converged in the lobby.
So it was that the members of the Umbrella Academy found themselves stepping out of their assorted elevators and stairwells and onto the polished black marble tiles of the lobby. It was always dark here, even in the middle of the day, partly because the entire hall was made from black marble but mostly because the gigantic shatterproof windows that shrouded the building's interior were tinted: from the outside, the lobby appeared pitch-black, while on the inside, the place was frozen at dusk no matter how high the sun rose or how many lights were on outside.
By now, the place was empty in the wake of the recent evacuation, with all civilian personnel sent home and all security now assembled in the streets outside to defend the approach to the tower, and all the lights had been turned down to their lowest settings, befitting Reginald's miserliness. This was eerie enough on its own, but thanks to the ongoing battle royale between Reginald and the ghost army, the front desk was periodically lit up by the flash of gunfire and exploding munitions, as if a vast storm had gathered just outside the lobby and lightning now cascaded down upon the surrounding streets.
In this strange and disturbing place, the Umbrella Academy was unsettled enough already. Then they got close enough to notice each other creeping in from the corners, and everything briefly went crazy.
For the next few minute, all anyone could do was shout: some whooped with joy at the sight of the family safely reunited and even hugged each other; some demanded explanations for why Klaus could suddenly levitate, why Diego was now telekinetic, or why Allison could turn steel doors to rubber with a quick-witted remark; and a few just wanted to know how they'd gotten their powers back with interest.
Unfortunately, Allison proved to be the most contentious arrival: Luther insisted on wearing a pair of stolen earmuffs before he'd allow himself to be within hollering distance of her, and Sloane immediately moved to protect him whenever Allison got too close; Lila and Diego were more than a bit on the frosty side, and only got close enough to shake her hand because Gracie wanted to say hello to her new "Aunt Allison"; Viktor could only wave awkwardly, unable to make up his mind on whether to forgive her or to continue distancing himself. Only Klaus and Ben were completely on Allison's side, with Helen offering noncommittal support largely because a) she didn't know Allison, and b) she didn't see the point in being divided in the middle of a full-scale rebellion.
And it was at that very moment, as Lila was covering Gracie's ears, Diego was pointing angrily at Allison and demanding to know why she was here, and Viktor was thinking back to a point in time when Diego had said the same thing about him, that Five appeared, still in a prison jumpsuit and looking as grouchy as ever.
"One of these days," he grumbled, "You kids are going to have to learn how to play nice."
"Where the hell have you been?" Diego all but screamed.
"Talking to someone who really loves the sound of their own voice."
"Yeah, coming from you, I take that as a sign of the apocalypse."
"You might not be far off. But the point still stands: the time for recriminations is over."
"Five, you were just as pissed with Allison as the rest of us! And while we're on the subject, Klaus and Ben were as well! Why's everyone in such a forgiving mood all of a sudden after everything that happened?"
"Because if everything goes well, what happened in the Hotel Oblivion probably won't matter anymore," said Five.
There was a pause, as the Academy and co considered this.
"What if everything goes to hell?" asked Klaus. "I mean, not to rain on anyone's parade, but we're not know for getting things right the first time or the third time. Second time maybe, but other than that, things usually go down the crapper. What happens then?"
Five smiled mirthlessly. "Well, in that case, what happened in the Hotel Oblivion won't matter anymore either," he said, ever-so-slightly manic in tone.
Luther sighed. "This really isn't the time to get cryptic again, Five. Just tell us what's going to happen-"
"-and how you found out," added Sloane.
"Look, to cut a long story short-"
"When have any of your stories been short, Five?"
"Diego!"
"Okay, okay, shutting up…"
"To cut a long story slightly shorter, I met someone who can help us undo everything that Reggie did to the world and make sure he doesn't get away with it this time. It's going to require effort, technical know-how, clever tactics, wild improvisation, and a lot of violence, but there's a good chance that it'll work and we'll all be able to go back to some semblance of our lives before Reggie turned himself into a hybrid of Big Brother and Mustafa Mond."
Almost in perfect unison, Viktor, Lila, Diego, Luther all opened their mouths to start asking questions, but Five beat them to it. "Before you even ask," he snapped, "that includes being able to rebuild the better parts of your lives from here: relationships, marriages, offspring, all of this can be replicated in the restored timeline almost to the letter, give or take the odd game of temporal join-the-dots. Trust me: I've done the math and studied temporal physics in enough detail to know that it can be done, and I hope by now that everyone here can trust me not to lie. Well, not about this kind of thing, anyway. So you won't be losing Sloane, you won't be losing your daughter, and you won't be losing… whoever this is."
"I'm Helen."
"Fine."
"But what happens if this plan doesn't work?" said Ben. "What's the absolute worst-case scenario?"
"Well, we die more thoroughly than we've ever died before and not even turning back time will save any of us. We might not even have an afterlife, because we probably won't have occupied reality long enough to have a place there: we'll just be gone." That slightly manic smile again. "Still interested?"
There was a pause.
Then, Klaus silently motioned for Lila to cover Gracie's ears.
"Fuck it," he said, "I'm game. Let's do this."
There was ripple of agreement from around the room. For once, nobody disagreed with Klaus.
"So," said Diego, "where do we start?"
"Upstairs: our patron's due to meet us on the penthouse; she'll give you the mission briefing in full while I get to work on dealing with security around our mission objective."
"So you already know everything that's going to happen? Again?"
"Pretty much."
There was a muffled ding from across the lobby, and at the end of the hall, a lone elevator slid open.
"And that's our cue to get moving," said Five, briskly. "All aboard, boys and girls: we've got a short and extremely busy morning ahead of us, and I don't want to waste another second chit-chatting."
"But who are we meeting with?" demanded Lila, as the Academy began piling into the elevator. "Who is this 'patron'?"
"It'll take too long for me to explain, and I'd rather spend the time doing something productive, like making sure we don't die pointless deaths in deeply embarrassing circumstances. Besides, she tells the story better than I can. For now, all I can tell you is that she talks too much and clearly thinks she's an authority on everything."
Lila rolled her eyes. "I'd ask if you've ever met yourself, but I know for a fact that you have, so let's just settle for a good old-fashioned 'pot kettle, Five'."
"Cute. Now get in the damn elevator, we haven't got all morning."
After a cramped but mercifully brief elevator ride, the Academy stumbled out into the early-morning gloom of the Hargreeves Tower penthouse: only a few lights had been left on, and in their place, the drapes on every single window had been flung open, casting the lights of the city on every room and corridor, soon to be replaced by the muddy indigo of twilight. It would be quite some time before any of them would see it, much less the sunrise that was to follow: thanks to the smog belched up by the industrial district on a non-stop basis, dawn always seemed to arrive a little later than it should.
And waiting for them in the entrance hall just beyond the elevators was-
There was a pause, as the Academy took in the sight of the trio that stood before them.
By now, all of them recognized the mysterious woman in white from their visions, and one or two of them even had an inkling of knowing her even better than that – including Luther, though he couldn't say how. However, none of them had been expecting to see Pogo and Grace flanking her, and they certainly hadn't been expecting to find them armed: Pogo was clearly wearing a stab-proof vest under his shirt and a pair of holstered pistols hung from his belt, while Grace was once again sporting a flamethrower slung over her shoulders, plus a combat shotgun and a bandolier of extra slugs.
"I'll give you twenty minutes of paused time to hear what she has to say," said Five. "After that, I'm going to need all my stamina for teleporting and winding back the clock, so make the most of it. Now, if you'll excuse me…"
And without another word, he teleported away.
"Welcome," whispered the mystery woman. "It's good to finally see you all in person. For a while, I was worried that the only chance I'd get to see you would be in archived footage from Reginald's memories. But here you are at last."
"Don't I know you from somewhere?" asked Luther. "I swear I've met you before."
"Technically, yes, but also no. You didn't meet me, but you were close enough to sense my presence even decades after my death: I understand it's one of the peculiarities of my kind – that our psychic impression lingers more potently than any other sapient lifeform in the universe. It can make places alluring, repellent, or both at the same time… not unlike your mansion in the original timeline, yes? And one other place you know quite well, I would wager, after all the time you spent watching over it."
Luther blinked, as the implications set in. "The moon? You were on the moon at the same time I was?"
"My corpse was, yes, exactly as Reginald left it. That was why he sent you up there, dear: to guard me, just in case his political influence ever waned enough for NASA to start prying into what he'd hidden there."
"…somehow, I don't feel any less used than I did before."
"Join the club," said Klaus, airily.
"Hold up," interjected Diego. "You're the same 'kind' as Reggie. Then what does that make y-"
"His wife," the mystery woman said smoothly. "Abigail Hargreeves. Or at least, that was the name I chose when we introduced ourselves to human society all those centuries ago. My birth name is long gone, as is my species. I'd gladly share with you all the stories of my home planet, my people, and our visits to Earth, but alas, we're running short on time, and I need to prepare you for the greatest struggle of your lives. So, any stories I tell you will have to be restricted to any records I leave for you once the task is done… assuming this all goes well. That doesn't bother you, I hope?"
Allison shrugged. "Well, the last alien we trusted roped me into betraying my family, murdered Luthor, murdered Klaus-"
"Twice," added Klaus.
"And almost killed all of us before trapping us in his own political wet dream for the last five years. And that was after we found out that the whole superhero business that we'd been trained most of our lives for had all been a lie. So yeah, we don't exactly have the best track record with aliens, mentors, or authority figures; leaving all the really interesting stories for the postmortem records would be literally the least you could do for us under the circumstances."
"I can't believe I'm saying this," said Diego, "but I'm with her on this one: get to the point."
In spite of herself, Abgail offered a wan smile. "Fair enough. Reginald already gave you his speech on how the machines of the Hotel Oblivion were left here by the creators of the universe as a backdoor of sorts, his method of remaking the world in his image once properly powered. Ever since Project Oblivion was completed, Reginald has been using those same machines to augment his rule, editing natural disasters and economic downturns out of existence before they can become a problem."
"Then why hasn't he just edited us out?" asked Lila. "If he had the power to just get rid of us, he'd have used it by now, right?"
"Oh, he's tried. Ironically, his deal with Allison was the one thing that managed to undermine his efforts to do so: once he made you a fixture of his new world, he couldn't so easily delete you from it. That was why he started sending you dreams in the hopes of compelling you to suicide… and when that didn't work, he sent assassins after you."
"Wait, suicide dreams?" demanded Viktor. "Was that what all the weird stuff about the blob monster and the park was all about?"
"And me advertising detergent?"
"And me being prostituted by a drug dealer?"
"And me becoming a stripper?"
"And me meeting a made-up version of Jennifer?"
"And me getting a crappy van and everyone puking all over it?"
There was a pause, and Diego eyed Lila curiously. "I can't remember the rest of my dream," he remarked. "What happened in yours?
Lila coughed uncomfortably and did her best not to make eye contact. "I can't remember either."
"Suffice it to say that Reginald never was a good storyteller," said Abigail. "The most he could do was extrapolate some of your personal anxieties, memories, and neuroses, and work them into an AI-written narrative that he thought would make you believe that everyone would be happier without you."
"But why would he even bother?
"Because, unfortunately for him, your collective presence turned out to be a destabilizing element, a leftover from a world that no longer exists, and the longer you remained in his world, the more errors began to appear in it. I'm sure you've noticed the objects from other timelines that have been appearing across the city – not to mention Pogo and Grace, of course. As you stay alive, the more Reginald's world unravels. And that's why I restored your powers – enhanced, as they are – and brought you here."
She took a deep breath. "It's not enough just to let the world fall apart: if we want to see Reginald's world undone, we need to fast-track the process. And, if we want the new world that emerges to be one that we can all live with, Five and I will need access to the machinery that Reginald stole from the Hotel Oblivion. We need just enough time to unlock the security mechanisms he's left and enough time to program things our way."
"Define 'our way'," said Viktor.
"Essentially, we restore the world from a save file: we bring back the world as you knew it, and we edit it just enough so that an apocalypse is impossible, Reginald's plans can never come to pass, and that you can hopefully rebuild the best parts of your lives without losing what matters most." She nodded meaningfully at Helen and Gracie. "The trick, of course, is to find the right save file."
"And what if you can't find the right one?"
"Well, then you won't be restored along with the rest of the world, because the backup we'll be restoring was from a timeline in which you and your family never existed. I'm hoping that won't be the case, but we'll do what we can."
There was an uncomfortable pause.
"You mentioned fast-tracking the end of the world," said Luther. "How are we supposed to do that?"
"Easy: you just need to disrupt this world as much as you can."
The Academy exchanged confused glances.
"We weren't doing enough already?" Ben asked. "Leading rebellions, mowing down the secret police, breaking into Hargreeves Tower – that's not disruptive enough?"
"Rebellion helps," admitted Abigail, "but it's not enough. Your existence itself is disruptive to this reality, and by extension, everything you do that stands in contrast to it: you need to enact a rudeness to reality, be eccentric, audacious, defiant, even crazy. To put it mildly, you need to be yourselves – in the craziest and most extravagant way possible, enough to commence the final unravelling."
Even more confused glances.
"How do we do that?" said Diego.
Abigail just smiled. "Property damage, music, fireworks, lurid displays of your power – as long as it's all of your doing and not just that of the armies you've created, it'll help undermine this reality's foundations. And believe me, once it starts to work, you will notice the effects."
"And while we're doing that, you'll be around the corner with Five, playing a hacking minigame with reality?"
"It shouldn't take too long: given that it was originally designed to be used in the event of an imminent apocalypse, the boot-up sequence should begin once the unravelling gets going. But whatever you do, you'll need to be ready to deal with Reginald: once he detects something amiss, he'll head straight up here to try and correct the fault, and he won't be unprepared for battle… assuming that he doesn't already suspect you're to blame and arrive in full force."
"How tough can he be?" said Allison. "I killed him pretty easily the last time I was in the same room as him."
"This may sound hard to believe, dear, but Reginald once killed the Majestic 12 and all their bodyguards with his bare tentacles, and only reason why your attack worked because Reginald wasn't expecting it. By now, he's armed himself with as much augmentation as he could manage through the power of the Oblivion machines; even your new power over reality and Five's time-distorting capabilities will not be enough to stop him… and now that he no longer needs any of you alive, he'll have no reason to hold back. So, my advice to you: each of you be prepared to use the fullest extent of your powers as one the moment that elevator door opens."
"And we'll have to do it while we're still trying to disrupt reality?" asked Sloane.
"Exactly."
"Nice to know the odds are pretty consistent from apocalypse to apocalypse."
"Chin up, dear: if there's one thing we can all agree that the Umbrella Academy's good at, it's doing the impossible."
"Just one other question," said Klaus. "What's in this for you? I mean, I get that you're not too crazy about how your hubby made a mess of the world, but what do you get out of turning back time to the Hotel Oblivion's old savestate or whatever the hell it is? I mean, if the last save file was from before the Kugelblitz, then you'll be dead."
Abigail smiled sadly. "You know as well as I do that returning from the dead isn't always as attractive as people think. I may not remember my afterlife as well as you remember yours, but I remember all my achievements while I was alive, and I know that I was satisfied with what I had learned and discovered and built. I faced death without fear, because I knew Reginald could carry on without me and do something meaningful with his life. Instead, not only am I alive again, not only am I forbidden from leaving this tower except under strict supervision and banned from any meaningful work, but Reginald couldn't uphold his oath to be a shepherd. Yes, Klaus, this can only end in my death. But after everything that's been done to bring me back – all the crimes, all the atrocities, all the betrayals – I'll be happy to rest again."
She paused, and for the first time since she'd appeared to them, she seemed tired – unimaginably weary.
"Our time's almost up," she said at last. "I need to begin helping Five with the machinery now. You have these few minutes of waylaid time left to decide what you can do to upset reality and begin the Unravelling. Remember: be audacious. Be yourselves." She took a deep breath. "Good luck."
And with that, she turned and left for the nearest staircase, gliding off into the pre-dawn darkness.
"Grace and I will stand guard over you for as long as we can while you begin the Unravelling," said Pogo. "I doubt we'll be enough to delay Sir Reginald for more than a few moments, but hopefully, that will be all you need. Now, please allow Grace to show you to the ballroom: you'll have all the room you need to begin disruptions there."
"But he'll kill you," said Viktor, unable to hide the plaintive note to his voice. "Doesn't that-"
"Not in the slightest. Remember, we've already died twice: by now, it's barely more than an inconvenience. Besides, if Master Five and Madam Abigail's plan goes well, it's not as if it will last for very long."
"Come along, children," said Grace, pleasantly as ever. "You have work to do."
"But Mom-"
"Now, now, Diego. We'll all the time in the world to talk once you and your brothers and sisters have finished your work…"
In hindsight, it wasn't too surprising that the penthouse had a ballroom: after all, Reggie had been quite the social butterfly back in the day, and so it made sense that the heart of his empire would have its own private dance floor – one even bigger than the functions hall at the Hotel Obsidian. This platinum and marble monstrosity looked like it could comfortably swallow a two-story suburban house, and the massive French windows provided such a panoramic view of the city that it was a wonder that passing aircraft hadn't noticed the intruders now sitting in the middle of it.
"Okay," said Luther, trying to sound more confident than he was. "We've got to think of something disruptive, something audacious, something that's… us."
"What about controlling the broadcasting viewscreens and showing off our powers?" Lila suggested. "Old Reggie's got to have some kind of public address control here."
Luther shook his head. "No, he was always irritable about public speaking; he wouldn't want to control that from his private sanctum, not if it meant having to watch what he said."
"What about just using our powers to blow up as much of the city as possible?" asked Diego. "The parts of it that have already been evacuated, I mean."
"Too much risk of collateral damage even with evacuated areas," said Viktor. "Besides, blowing up city blocks isn't our style. And we've already got the army of the dead out there raising hell: if that's not disruptive, showing off our powers isn't gonna cut it either."
"Then what about just fiddling around with reality directly?" asked Allison. "What if we do everything we can to defy conventional physics? Reality, time, the underworld, sonic energy, kinetic energy – let's do the craziest sh- stuff we can do with our powers."
"Still not really us," mused Klaus.
"Then maybe some other kind of spectacle would work," suggested Ben. "We could have Klaus have the ghosts recite our life story on street corners, or have Allison project visions of it on the sky, or… erm…"
"Yeah, that's the problem," said Diego. "It needs to be something that all of us can do. Something big, something bold, something-"
"Daddy, what's that on the floor?"
"What?"
All eyes followed the direction of Gracie's outstretched hand: there, on the ballroom floor, was an open violin case, and sitting inside was…
Viktor blinked.
He'd seen it before: throughout all the years of his unhappy childhood, it had been the one bright spot in his life, the one thing that had almost been enough to make him think he was special… but the last time he'd seen it, it had been bleached stark-white by his powers, every last drop of colour drained from it in the explosion of his rage and musical fervour. Now, here it was again, exactly as it had been on the day the world had ended for the first time.
The White Violin.
On the open lid of the case, a tiny handwritten note had been taped to the corner: In another life, this was my violin; in the original timeline, it was yours, Viktor. If you wish, it can be yours again. Let it be a reminder that nothing in the world can stop you. Love, Abigail.
"Music," Viktor realized aloud. "That's what we can do."
Helen punched the air. "Thank you, Jesus!"
Luther looked blank. "Are you seriously suggesting we disrupt the fabric of reality by forming a band?"
"Why not? Can you think of anything crazier we can all do together? We've already got two violinists. Now, I remember you used to play guitar back at the academy, Diego-"
"And I'm a drummer," said Lila. "What about the rest of us?"
"I'm a reality warper," Allison remarked. "I can make any sound you need, and I can give you the instruments as well. Ben?"
"Well, Umbrella Ben played classical piano, and Sparrow Ben played jazz, so I guess I'm your man for the keyboard. Sloane?"
"I used to play oboe; it's been a while, but I'm pretty sure I could play along without too much trouble. Luther?"
"Erm… there was that one time when Reginald made me play the timpani to short out a sonic weapon, so I guess I could do that. What about you, Klaus?"
There was a pause, as Klaus considered this. "We don't need a band," he said quietly. "We need an orchestra."
He stretched out his hands, fingertips aglow with an unearthly blue light: a second later, figures began to materialize around them, pouring into the room in a luminous flood until the entire ballroom was occupied by a small horde of ghostly figures, all of them in eveningwear, all of them wielding the same instruments they'd been killed while playing.
As one, they bowed to Klaus as he took his place at the head of the orchestra.
"Since when do you know how to conduct?" Viktor demanded.
"You know you're talking to the guy who can get advice out of dead people, right? Well, let's just say that there was this one time when a Mafia boss wanted a local orchestra to perform at his daughter's wedding, but when the happy day rolled around, the conductor was off getting high with me and the boss's guys couldn't tell the two of us apart, so they accidentally got me to lead the orchestra instead." Klaus smiled bemusedly. "It actually went pretty good: the boss didn't break any fingers until after the party."
There was a pause, as Allison began obligingly Rumouring several new instruments into existence – a bass guitar for Diego, a full drum kit for Lila, an oboe for Sloane, a digital piano for Ben, a massive set of timpani for Luther, and even a baton for Klaus. There was some brief discussion over what they'd play, but in the end, they all agreed that there was only one song that fit the situation and the odds.
Besides, Freddy Mercury had been banned for almost three years, and Klaus was very eager to hear The Show Must Go On again.
Then, they all took their places among the orchestra, Gracie sitting back on a couch to watch the grand display – with a warning to take cover upstairs with Abigail and Five one things started getting hairy.
There was a pause.
Then…
"One, two, three, four-"
A/N: Up next... the Unravelling.