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❛ ᴛʜᴇ ʙ. ʙ. ᴇꜰꜰᴇᴄᴛ​​​​​​​​​​. ❜ ° . ༄
- ͙۪۪˚   ▎❛ 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍 ❜   ▎˚ ͙۪۪̥◌
»»————- ꒰ ᴀʟᴄᴏʜᴏʟɪᴄs
( ɴᴏᴛ ) ᴀɴᴏɴʏᴍᴏᴜs ꒱　


❝ I'M THE FOUR FRICKIN'
HORSEMEN & THE
APOCALYPSE IS COMING ❞

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A stereotypical girl at six would be obsessed with princesses, glitter and pink— and to an extent, Allison was. Alexa, on the other hand, wasn't (many contribute this to her best friend being Five who strongly discouraged any sort of frivolity.) There were still some so-called "girly" qualities that she retained even if they went against her father's or Five's wishes. One was her long hair which she viewed as one of her prized possessions. She knew she wasn't supposed to be vain but she couldn't help but grow out her golden hair so it was more princess-styled than battle-ready. This required extra-careful care as if it were to get too cumbersome, Reginald would require her to cut it off.

Because of this, she spent (whenever she could) several hours brushing her hair and getting the tangles out. Sometimes, when he was feeling generous, Five would help her as it did get tiring to do the same strokes over and over. Alexa would never admit it aloud as this would result in immediate termination of the act, but she loved it when Five brushed her hair. It was also when they had their most child-like conversations which could be a contributing factor.

They were their usual positions (Alexa sitting on a stool and Five sitting behind her on his bed) having one of these discussions.

"I wish I had your powers," Alexa sighed as Five began (with the ends, of course.)

The boy rolled his eyes. "Your powers are just as important, Lexa. You know we wouldn't operate half as well as we do without you."

"I know, but compared to spacial jumping, shields are so boring! And besides, I have to walk everywhere."

One of his (many) favorite things about Alexa was that she always remembered the correct term for his powers. His other siblings— especially Luther— made mistakes often by saying "teleportation" which was completely different than what he did. This being said, he allowed a small smile to form as he responded, "it's a lot more work than you think it is to get spacial jumps correct."

"Yeah, but your power is way more cinematically attractive."

Five snorted in amusement. "What do you think we're in, a TV show?"

☂☂☂

Alexa sighed as she walked next to Luther down the alley, looking worriedly at the boy he was carrying. As much as Five had pissed her off earlier, she still cared about him of course and he'd drunk a whole bottle of alcohol in his fifteen-year-old body.

"Well, we can't go back to the house. It's not secure. Those psychopaths could come back at any moment," Luther said, causing Alexa's eyes to widen in alarm.

"Wait, what?" she exclaimed. "When did this happen? Where was I?"

Her brothers ignored her as Diego suggested his place, and then Five woke up with a loud burp. Luther sighed. "If you vomit on me—"

"You know what's funny?" the boy interrupted him. "Aah! I'm going through puberty." He giggled drunkenly. "Twice. And I. . . I drank that whole bottle, didn't I? That's what you do when the world you love goes bye-bye." He waved his hand, releasing Dolores for a moment. "Poof, it's gone. What are you guys talkin' about?"

Without looking at him, Diego said, "two masked intruders attacked the Academy last night. They came looking for you. So I need you to focus. What do they want?"

So that's what happened, Alexa thought as a worried feeling gnawed at her stomach. She hoped no one got hurt because that would be on her— she hadn't been there when they needed protection.

"Hazel and Cha-Cha," Five slurred.

"Who?"

"You know, I hate codenames," Luther grumbled.

Alexa rolled her eyes. "We had codenames, idiot."

"Ah, the best of the best. Except for me, of course," Five explained.

"The best of what?" Diego demanded.

"You know, Dolores always said she hated when I drink. She said it made me surly."

"Hey!" he snapped, turning around to face the boy.

Five gave him a look through glazed eyes. "Hm? Yeah?"

"I need you to focus. What do this Hazel and Cha-Cha want? We just wanna protect you."

The boy scoffed. "Protect me? I don't need your protection, Diego. Do you have any idea how many people I've killed? No. I'm the Four frickin' Horsemen and the apocalypse is coming." He then promptly turned over and threw up.

☂☂☂

"Funny," Diego commented as Luther laid Five on his brother's bed. "If I didn't know he was such a prick I'd say he looks almost adorable in his sleep."

Alexa snorted in amusement as she eyed the dump Diego called "his place." She could tell that he certainly didn't have a future in interior design.

"Well, don't worry. He'll sober up eventually and be back to his normal, unpleasant self," Luther replied.

Ever impatient, Diego said, "yeah, I can't wait that long. I need to find out what his connection is with these lunatics before someone else dies. All that stuff he was saying before. What do you think he meant by that?"

Before anyone answered him, all of them froze at the sound of approaching footsteps. Diego pulled out one of his knives and cautiously approached the door, which stood ajar.

A man's gruff voice sounded irritably in the hallway: "you throw another one of those goddamn knives at me, I'm pressin' charges."

"What do you want, Al?"

"I ain't your secretary," the older man snarked.

"Yeah."

"Some lady called for you, said she needs your help," he explained.

"What lady?" Diego asked.

"I dunno. Some, uh, detective. I think she said her name was, uh, Blotch or somethin'," Al said.

"Patch? She needs my help." Her brother sounded pleased.

"She needs you to meet her at that motel, a dump on Calhoun."

"When?" Diego questioned him.

"About half an hour ago. Uh, said she found your brother."

As all three of them turned to look at Five, Luther said, "well, that didn't make sense." Realization dawned on them and they spoke in unison: "Klaus."

"Go—" Luther started to say.

Alexa spoke at the same time: "I'll wait here with—"

Neither got to finish as their brother raced out the door.

☂☂☂

She didn't know how much time had passed as her brother didn't seem to feel clocks were important but Alexa sat down on the bed and moved Five's head into her lap. She then let her fingers gently move through his soft brown hair; Luther had left to walk around the building some time ago as neither were able to stand the other's presence for long. He must've grown tired of doing that though and he came back as Five began to stir.

After he got his bearings and sat up, Luther immediately demanded an explanation of what the hell was going on, so Alexa and Five spent the next ten minutes briefing him on everything they knew.

Luther sat silently for a minute before he asked, "so when's it going to happen? This apocalypse?"

"I can't give you the exact hour but from what I could gather, we have four days left."

"Why didn't you say something sooner?" Luther asked him accusingly.

In a defeated sort of way, Five answered. "It wouldn't have mattered."

"Of course it would. We could've banded together and helped you try to stop this thing!"

"For the record, we already tried," Alexa put in, trying to spare Five from repeating himself.

"What do you mean?" Luther wondered.

Five sighed. "I found all of you. Your bodies."

"We die?"

Five gave a little nod. "Horribly. You were together trying to stop whoever it was that ends the world."

"Wait, how do you know that?"

Five held up the eyeball so Luther could see. "This was clutched in your dead hand when I found you. Must've ripped it out of their head right before you went down."

"Whose head?"

"Like I said, I don't know."

"Well, there's a serial number on the back. Think maybe you could try—"

"No, that's a dead end." He laughed bitterly. "It's just another hunk of glass."

At that moment, Diego burst in with anger radiating off of him. "Piece of shit!" he exclaimed as he rushed towards the boy.

Alexa raised half off the bed to intercept him. Luther got there first and he put his hand on his brother's chest as Diego tried to slip past. "Do you have any idea what you just did?"

Luther— using his size to his advantage— lifted his brother off the ground as he said, "nope, let me—"

Diego squirmed in his grip and snapped, "get your ape hands off of me!"

Alexa sighed as her bigger brother responded mildly, "I can do this as long as it takes you to calm down."

Diego fought for a minute longer before admitting defeat. "Fine." Luther let him down as he asked, "now, wanna tell us what you're talkin' about?"

Her dark-haired brother glared at the boy next to her. "Our brother's been pretty busy since he got back. He was in the middle of that shootout at Griddy's and then at Gimble Brothers after the guys in masks attacked the Academy looking for him."

Alexa glanced at Five who didn't seem to be affected by the news. "None of which is any of your concern."

"It is now," Diego said angrily. "They just killed my friend. Who are they, Five?"

"They work for my former employer. A woman called The Handler. She sent them to stop me. Then soon as Diego's friend got in their way, well, fair game"

While Five said this in a flat tone, Alexa knew him— or, at least had— and knew that he did care, it was just that emotions were a distraction in their condensed deadline and they didn't have the time to mourn a collateral. 

Diego turned towards the door. "And now they're my fair game. I'm gonna see to it they pay."

"That would be a mistake, Diego," Five called after him. "They've killed people far more dangerous than you."

Their brother didn't even pause as he left. "Yeah, we'll see about that."

☂☂☂

Now just Alexa, Five and Luther remained in the backroom of the boxing ring as an awkward silence fell over them until Luther finally broke it: "former employer? What's this really about? And don't give me any of this 'it's none of your business' crap, all right?"

Five sighed. "Well, it's a long story. They turned me into the perfect instrument for rehabilitation of the time continuum. Or 'corrections' as they called them. I wasn't the only one. There are others like me."

"Others?" Alexa echoed, confused.

"Beings out of time," Five explained as he glanced hesitantly at her. "Fractured, extracted from the lives that they knew. I don't know how they got there. But I do know that none of them were as good as me. They didn't realize it but I was biding my time, trying to figure out the right equation so I could get back. If I could just get back, I knew I could stop the apocalypse. Save the world." His voice was quiet by the end and Alexa knew he was thinking about the uncountable missions he must have been on. She couldn't even begin to imagine what he had gone through to get home.

"So you were a hitman?" Luther asked.

"Yes."

"Uh I mean, you had a code, right? You didn't kill just anybody."

Five shook his head. "No code. We took out anyone who messed with the timeline."

"What about innocent people?"

Alexa buried her face in her hands. She'd almost forgotten how annoyingly self-righteous her brother could be. Luther didn't get it and while it could be because he'd been on the moon for years, she wasn't going to accept that as an excuse. He always seemed to conveniently forget that he had his fair share of blood on his hands from their Umbrella Academy missions. Even if those people had been termed "bad," he'd still killed them.

"It was the only way I could get back here."

"But that's murder," Luther (predictably) protested.

"Jesus, Luther, grow up. We're not kids anymore. There's no such thing as good guys or bad guys. There's just people, goin' about their lives. But when the world ends, all those people die, including our family. Time changes everything."