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❛ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘ. ᴘᴀɴ ᴇғғᴇᴄᴛ​​​​​​​​​​. ❜ ° . ༄
- ͙۪۪˚   ▎❛ 𝐓𝐖𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐘-𝐓𝐖𝐎 ❜   ▎˚ ͙۪۪̥◌
»»————- ꒰ɪᴛ's ᴛʜᴇ ᴇɴᴅ ᴏғ
ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴏʀʟᴅ ᴀs ᴡᴇ ᴋɴᴏᴡ ɪᴛ꒱


❝ THAT WAS SO FUCKING HOT ❞

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"I don't care about the sigil! None of us do!" Sloane shouted at her father. Her nerves were frayed and she was at her wits' end; they'd just narrowly escaped their fight with the guardian only to discover that Deianira had yet to make an appearance. Now, with her father's insistence on this wild goose chase, she finally lost her temper.

"We barely survived that guardian with his stupid helmet and sickle," Diego put in helpfully.

Viktor paused. "The guardian we killed had an axe."

"Ours had a sword," the blonde replied shakily.

Diego and Lila looked at each other apprehensively. "There's one left."

The damning words made Sloane's stomach clench with worry. Nira. Her wife and the Umbrella's number eight were the only members not currently accounted for: they must be facing off with the final samurai. If their fight with the lesser guardians was anything to go by, the number eights would need an immense amount of teamwork in order to defeat their opponent. The thought did nothing to appease her concern.

Five seemed to share her unease as he glanced at his siblings. "Lexa's still missing."

"Shit," the second Hargreeves breathed out. His hand tightened around the hilt of his knife. "We have to go find them."

"Because that worked so well the first time," Ben drawled. He seemed to not be worried about their missing siblings in the slightest despite his close connection with Deianira.

Sloane rounded on him with a furious expression on her face. "You can't seriously be thinking that we'll just leave them here to die!" Her voice rose on the last word before it cracked from the swell of emotion.

"Deianira can handle herself," the Asian man replied dismissively. "I'm not so sure about the other number eight."

The boy's eyes narrowed. "Screw this," he snarled.

Despite his exhaustion, the thought of Alexa fighting against the guardian brought forth a burst of adrenaline. He knew she wasn't prepared to protect herself; she wasn't as skilled as they were in combat. Her training had been tailored so that she would always be ready to protect them. The techniques were notably different and put her at a disadvantage. However, before he could run off to find his girlfriend like he intended, a loud shattering of glass sounded from above them. The Hargreeves' attention turned to the noise: a massive red-and-blue cloud fell from the ceiling to spill on the floor before them.

It was impossible to see what was happening except for the occasional glint of metal that came from the guardian's weapon as it escaped its confines. Five jolted forward to help only to have a light hand bring him to a stop. He whirled around, prepared to fend off whoever had the gall to stop him, only to be met with Sloane's sympathetic expression.

"I wouldn't go in there if I were you," she warned him gently. She pointed to the display of power with her free hand. "Do you see the purple areas?" At his nod, she continued: "reality is more than just distorted there. You'd never be able to find your way."

He met her gaze desperately. "So I'm just supposed to stay here and. . . watch?"

"I'm afraid so," the woman answered softly. "Trust me, I want more than anything to help Nira but we'd only get in the way. Have faith in your number eight, Five. If she's anything like our number eight, she'll make it out."

"That's just the thing," Five said with a sigh. "She isn't anything like your number eight."

At the lack of movement from the two number fives, Diego stepped forward to hiss in his brother's ear: "what, are you just going to stand there? We have to do something!"

The boy sent him an irritated look. "Don't you think I want to? Sloane's warned me off from joining in."

"And you're just going to listen to her?" he asked with disbelief.

He shrugged helplessly. "What else am I supposed to do?"

"Let's jump in and fight—"

His words were cut off by the sudden appearance of the eighth member of their family. Alexa burst out of the cloud for a moment's respite, though she hardly noticed her audience. While her skin remained unharmed— thanks to her invulnerability— she was panting and her hair was bushed up in a frizzy mess.

The guardian was currently contained in a box of her own making; the glowing blue corners could be seen poking out of the red fog. Deianira was taunting their opponent with her illusions by creating mirror images of themselves to distract the samurai. Right now, she was in front of it with several copies surrounding her. Alexa knew that her window of opportunity was short, so she did her best to ignore the lingering doubts about her abilities. She wasn't good enough. She'd always be a failure. Her powers would only work when it was too late. She shut out her father's critical voice and her sister's mocking one.

Instead, she closed her eyes and focused on all of the training she'd experienced over the last few days: her meditation, Five's presence in her memories and Deianira's assistance with fixing her power. She cleared her mind until it was nothing more than a glowing blue expanse— a clean slate. She was an artist: anything she thought of could be brought to life with simple effort. She'd created more paintings and drawings than she could count; she formed scenes with her bare hands and breathed life into them. Using her power was nothing more complex than wielding a paintbrush.

Unbeknownst to her, her avid audience watched with shock as her familiar shields formed into more than just something that was two-dimensional. Perhaps she'd been channeling her boyfriend because an axe formed in her hands out of brilliant azure. It was as solid and real as the weapon itself except for its monochrome color. The scarlet cloud thinned until the edges of the blue box were visible. The side closest to the blonde disappeared but the guardian was still caught up in swinging at Deianira's projections.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Alexa let out a battle cry and charged forward. Raising the weapon high above her head, it pulsed with power as she neared her target. The guardian hardly had time to realize what was coming for him before the blade of her axe was slicing through his helmet like a hot knife through butter. She cleaved his metal armor clean in half and as both pieces fell to the floor, their edges sizzled golden from contact with her energy.

The axe disappeared from her hands a second later and the girl placed her palms on her knees to catch her breath. Deianira let out an ecstatic whoop of joy. Her dark, curly hair seemed to have grown twice its size from the heat of battle and there was a sheen of sweat on her face, but her brown eyes glittered with triumph and she beamed proudly.

Sloane didn't waste a single moment to throw herself into her wife's arms as she exclaimed loudly about how worried she'd been, you stupid idiot. Her complaints were soon cut off as Deianira brought her in for a passionate kiss that had some of the Hargreeves averting their eyes.

Five, on the other hand, stared at his girlfriend as if he'd never seen her before. His emerald eyes were wide with shock and his mouth hung open slightly. When Alexa had finally recovered her breath, she brushed her hair back from her sweaty face as she straightened. Before she could go up to the boy, she was pulled into a crushing hug from her brother.

"Holy shit, Al," Diego breathed out. His arms were wrapped so tightly around her that she couldn't squirm her way around to hug him properly. "How the hell did you learn to do that?"

She smiled despite the pink that crept up her face. "Let's just say that practice makes perfect."

"Damn, I'll say. That was amazing!"

"Thanks," she replied despite her embarrassment. "Um, Go-go. . . I can't breathe."

He quickly let go of her. "Oh, sorry." He saw her glance over at the shocked boy and rolled his eyes. "Alright, I'll let you go knock the socks off your old man, so to speak."

She made a face at him. "Don't say that. It makes him sound like my father, which is gross."

He patted her on the shoulder. "It's already gross, Al. You don't need my help for that."

The girl stuck her tongue out at him as he made his way back to Lila. He stuck up his middle finger in response, to which she rolled her eyes. Then, she turned her attention to her boyfriend, who hadn't moved or shaken from his stupor. With a faint smile, she walked over to him and waved a hand in front of his face. "Uh. . . hello? Is anyone home?"

He jerked out of his daze. "Sorry. When the hell did you learn to do that?"

"Funnily enough, I've been getting that question a lot lately. My go-to answer is that practice makes perfect."

His brows furrowed. "So. . . when we. . . meditated together—?"

Alexa nodded. "Yeah, that's definitely part of it." She clasped her hands in front of her and glanced down at her shoes. "So. . . I can do things that I never thought were possible. . ." She wanted to ask what he'd thought about her performance, so to speak, but wasn't quite sure how to phrase the question.

"I saw," Five told her, still in awe. Then he added honestly: "that was so fucking hot."

She blushed darkly, though that had been the response she'd been hoping for. Her lips quirked regardless of the burning redness in her cheeks. "Well. . . maybe you can put that thought on the back burner until we save the world?"

He smirked at the insinuation behind her words. "I'll try, but I can't make any promises. I'm definitely not forgetting what just happened anytime soon."

The blonde stepped forward and pushed up on her toes to press a soft kiss to his cheek. As she pulled away, she murmured: "good."

☂︎ ☂︎ ☂︎

After the display of power, it took a while to get the Hargreeves back on track. However, Five was quick to notice the unusual pattern on the floor. As the group argued about how to proceed— and Klaus complained about the level of their noise— he raced up their stairs to confirm his findings. From his vantage point, he called out: "guys! The sigil! It's on the lobby floor! It's the stars!"

Reginald wasted no time in organizing the siblings: "children, find a star on the sigil. Stand on it! Ben, now's your time, boy!" he addressed the Sparrow.

Although the Hargreeves were reluctant to obey their father, Ben— the most diligent of them— was the first to follow his orders. Sloane was next as the siblings followed her lead. Viktor looked down at the stars. "Eight points, eight of us? We're the bells?"

"Well, we're actually more than eight," Alexa pointed out as she nodded to Deianira and Allison.

"That's still enough for each point," the Romani woman said.

As they each took up a place in the lobby, Allison made to step forward. Reginald put an arm out to stop her. "No. Not you!"

The spots were soon taken by most of the siblings: Sloane, Ben, Lila, Diego, Viktor and Klaus. Five came down the stairs to take his own position while Alexa hesitated. She met the other woman's eyes, but the brunette nodded to the star. The blonde could almost hear her: go on. You're more altruistic than I am. She nodded in response and took up the final position at the head of her family.

Screams of pain instantly sounded from each of the siblings. White shafts of light shone down on the spots where they stood as seven energy beams connected them. It soon faded after the initial linking. A hologram of golden rooms formed around them, seeming to be powered by the siblings' energy. Blue light cut through the lobby and concentrated around Alexa's form. It spread to each of her siblings to cover them all in an azure film. Their cries of agony lessened.

The white light suddenly intensified, causing the blue glow to increase. The siblings groaned with pain as the power sapped the Hargreeves' strength to turn their healthy bodies in to sallow, blue-skinned skeletal figures. Golden particles floated up to the ceiling from each of their forms. 

Then, without warning, the device powered down and released the siblings from its deadly grasp. They collapsed on the floor with relief, most of them coughing as they struggled to recover.

Deianira rushed over to Sloane to pull the weakened woman into her lap. She cradled the blonde in her arms as she bent her head to bury her face against her wife's hair. She rocked the woman gently as she murmured apologies; guilt seeped through her for not being able to stop her wife from being in pain. In an effort to ease her discomfort, she let her red energy weave itself around Sloane's body in a blanket of restorative energy. To her great relief, color slowly began to come back into the woman's complexion.

Allison had other priorities. Instead of taking the time to worry about her siblings, she walked up to the pulsing button that sat just waiting to be pushed. Her gaze fixed on her prize, hardly aware of her recuperating siblings. Five struggled to get her attention: "Allison. . . Allison, don't touch that button. We don't know what it does."

Viktor was the first to struggle to his feet. "Allison, stop!" He summoned his White Violin power despite his damaged state. "Don't make me do this!"

"Do you trust me?" she asked him. Her hand was positioned to press the button, regardless of the consequences that may come from it. Her brother hesitated at her question only to ultimately retract his power.

"Viktor, what are you doing?" the boy demanded. "Stop her!"

The siblings added their own protest to his, but to no avail. She ignored them all to follow through with their mission of resetting the universe.

☂︎ ☂︎ ☂︎

The elevator doors slid open to reveal a peaceful park. Golden light from the surrounding lamps glowed softly against the night sky. Car horns sounded faintly in the distance. Even birds sang their evening songs in the trees.

Everything was entirely, completely. . . normal.

The group stepped into the new scene cautiously, hardly able to believe what they were seeing. Five paths stretched out in front of them, each one running diagonally across the center where a monument stood. Lila laughed with disbelief. "Cool."

Five was the first to take note of the statue that greeted them: a likeness of their father's face which was sculpted in dark metal. The sign underneath the bust read:

OBSIDIAN MEMORIAL PARK

GRACIOUSLY DONATED BY
SIR REGINALD HARGREEVES
THIS 1ST DAY OF OCTOBER, 1989

The elevator doors opened once more to reveal an unexpected sight. Alexa stared at her brother with surprise. "Luther? Luther?"

"Oh, shit," the larger man breathed out. "You can see me?"

"Yes!" she exclaimed. Relief swamped through her in a tidal wave and it only took her a moment to get over her shock. Once she had, she raced forwards to give Luther a tight hug.

"I'm alive! I'm alive!"

As he set his sister down, Viktor spoke up: "that's not all, big guy."

"Huh?" He looked down at his body. "Woah! My body! Wait— I look amazing!"

"Luther's all svelte now," Klaus commented brightly.

Alexa beamed at her reunited family. The weight of two more of her siblings' deaths lifted from her shoulders in a way that Ben's never had. She returned to her boyfriend's side and slid her hand into his to squeeze it happily. Her smiled was infectious and Five couldn't help but let his lips quirk up in response. However, their success was more short-lived than they would've liked it to be.

"This is so cool." Luther looked around at the assorted group before he realized that several members were missing. "W-wait, where's Sloane? And Deianira?"

"Oh, they were, uh. . . they were right behind me," Klaus said uncertainly.

"When Allison hit the bloody button," Lila realized.

Diego looked around at the group. "She's gone too."

"You know, I don't know about you guys but I haven't felt this good in years," the fourth Hargreeves remarked.

"Does anyone know where the hell we are?"

"The hotel," the British woman replied. "Or at least, where it used to be."

"I think the old man did it." Five commented as he looked around at the park. "I think he reset the universe."

Diego stepped in front of his girlfriend with his hand raised. She laughed with delight. "You got your fingers back!"

Luther was still on edge about the absent couple. He marched furiously up to the boy and grabbed hold of his blazer, yanking Five's hand from Alexa's grasp. Through gritted teeth, he growled out: "I don't care about any resets, alright? Where the hell did they go, Five?"

The boy did his best to remain calm. "I'm glad you're alive but please take your hands off me."

His brother grabbed both sides of his jacket to heft him off the ground slightly. "Not until you give me an answer."

Five scoffed. "Okay, screw this." He tried to spatial jump but when he only managed to jolt his body, he froze. "Something's wrong."

"That's right," Luther said as he tightened his grip on the boy's jacket. "You're about to get your ass kicked."

"Yeah, kick his ass!" Diego cheered.

He glared at his brother. "No, you moron. My power. I can't blink."

Alexa frowned and lifted her hands to examine them. "Are you sure? I don't feel any different. I think I'd know if I could age again."

"Yeah right," the second Hargreeves dismissed his words. He pulled out a knife and began to spin it, only for the blade to drop to the ground. "That's not good."

The blonde closed her eyes and tried to summon the familiar blue of her power, but to no avail. Viktor curled his hands into fists as he attempted to activate his white light, but he was unsuccessful as well. Klaus held out his hand and wiggled his fingers. "Okay. . . come on. Alakazam. . . ghosties!" Nothing. He let out a disappointed groan. "This means I'm mortal again? Aw man!"

"Wait, wait, wait," Ben cut in. "How do we get them back, you idiots?" Silence met his words; none of them were able to give him a proper answer.

"I gotta. . . I gotta go find Sloane. And Deianira, I guess," Luther decided finally. "I promised her that we'd look out for each other."

Klaus chased after his departing brother. "No! Luther, you can't go! You were dead five minutes ago. You're fragile!" He hardly paused a moment to add: "I gotta go after him."

"No. Wa— Klaus, wait!" Diego tried to stop him, but their brother didn't have a very good history of listening to anyone.

The Asian man shook his head. "I'm out, bitches."

Viktor sighed. "What? Guys, come on. We should stick together and figure this out—"

"Well, what are we supposed to do?" Diego asked.

Lila looked up at him. "Live our lives?"

Alexa smiled slightly as her gaze fell on the boy next to her. "That sounds good to me."

The British woman reached for her boyfriend's hand before they turned their backs on the remaining siblings. Five and Viktor stared at each other for a moment but when no solutions came to them, the teens glanced at each other. They wordlessly turned around and took their own path away from the center of the park.

As they walked, Five removed his hand from the girl's to wrap it around her shoulders. He pulled her against his side as he looked down at her fondly. Her blue gaze met his at the same time and— in a split-second decision— he closed the distance between them to capture her lips in a loving kiss. They paused to enjoy it and Alexa closed her eyes as she savored the moment. When they separated, a faint, mischievous smirk played on his lips. "So, how about we start by crossing off one of the things on your list?"

Her eyes lit up at the suggestion. "Are you asking me on a date?"

"If I was, would you say yes?"

"Of course, you idiot."

He grinned at her. "Well then: Lexa, would you like to go on a date with me?"

The girl's expression became impossibly bright. "Yes." She paused before she added: "I love you."

His smile tilted into a smirk. "I know."

Alexa's only response was an amused roll of her eyes; he didn't need to repeat the sentiment for her to know that he felt the same way.