Crucifix Academy

P A R T F O U R

"I survived on scraps. Canned food, cockroaches, anything I could find." Dianne cringed at the thought of eating cockroaches. Five dryly chucked to himself.

 "You know that rumor that Twinkies have an endless shelf life? Well, it's total bullshit." It was the ginger's turn to laugh. It wasn't that she didn't believe him, it was just that- well she didn't believe him.

"I can't even imagine." the woman named Vanya (as Dianne just so recently learned). Apparently she was a part of the Umbrella Academy but never actually APART of the Academy. Seeing as how her own brother called her ordinary, she didn't seem to have such a great childhood. How could she? A very ordinary girl surrounded by super extraordinary children, she had to be the odd one out.

Dianne felt bad for her, if that was the case. Although her father was a cruel and overbearing man, he had never exiled any of his children from the family. Five continued to speak about his time in the apocalypse, how hard it was.

"You do whatever it takes to survive, or you die. So we adapted. Whatever the world threw at us, we found a way to overcome it."

"We?" Dianne piped in, confused. 'I thought he said he was alone.'

"Do you have anything stronger?" Five asked, dismissing Dianne's confusion like always. Rolling her eyes, she shoved her hands in the box of cereal. Five watched her closely, taking notice bored expression. 

"You think I'm crazy." 

"Yes" – "No" Vanya stammered, "It's just that..it's a lot to take in." Five glared at the smug look Dianne gave him suddenly wishing she wasn't here. 

"Exactly what don't you understand?" Five asked, standing up. Dianne was quick to take his spot on the lazyboy, immediately kicking her feet up with the chair. 

"Why didn't you just time travel back?" Vanya asked. Five scoffed and turned his head.

"Gee, wish I'd thought of that. Time travel is a crapshoot. I went into the ice and never acorn-ed. You think I didn't try everything to get back to my family?" Dianne couldn't see it but there was a softness in Five's eyes. One that only Vanya could see. 

"If you grew old there, you know, in the apocalypse, how come you still look like a kid?" it was Dianne's turn to ask. She had been dying to ask why he still looked like a 16 year-old.

"I must have gotten the equations wrong." Dianne walked over to where the two siblings were, snacking on her stolen treat. 

"You know, my dad used to be obsessed with your powers, he used to go on about how time travel could mess with your mind, maybe that's what's happening." Vanya nodded shyly in agreement as she poured a drink. 

"This was a mistake. You're too young... - too naive to understand." Five started walking away, leaving Dianne offended. 

"No. Five... Five, wait. I haven't seen you in a long time, and I don't want to lose you again. That's all." the woman tried to get her brother to stay, in which Dianne suddenly felt out of place. She shuffled her feet silently setting the box of cereal down as the woman said goodnight before heading to her room. 

"Are you gonna stay?" 

"No. Come on." Five blinked away leaving Dianne to make her own way out. In a crackle of electricity, the room lit up in light as she could feel her cells become electricity along with the rest of her body. In a flash like lighting, she was outside of the apartment complex and on the street where Five waited for her. 

She couldn't tell if it was her imagination or Five really had a look of fascination when she appeared and reconstructed herself from electricity back into solid form. The expression was gone even before she could get a good look at it, leaving Five's neutral expression. 

"Where to now?" she asked, hopping in the car. Five, shutting the door to his car, sat in thought. 

"I don't know..." he stated honestly. He didn't want to go back to the academy and bring the girl along. God only knows the reaction he'd be getting for bringing a criminal home. Dianne, on the other hand, had other plans.

"I know a place we could go to for the night." Five looked at her with a suspicion. One she knew all too well...

Int. Boarding House - Foyer - FlashBack

"Children!" Mikael called throughout the house. His tone demanding their presence. There at his feet laid a broken vase. It had been shattered into pieces upon his absence. All seven children lined up in order of their number.

"I will only ask you this one time and I expect an honest answer." his eyes glowered at all the children causing them to shuffle uncomfortably. "Who broke it?" silence took the room as the children looked at one another, waiting for one of them to fess up or take the blame.

"No one? Six?" He looked at Erik, "Did you break it?" the boy averted his father's eyes. "Hm?" he grabbed the boys face and forced him to look into his eyes. "Answer me!" he ordered.

"N-no sir!" – "No what?"

"I didn't b-break it." his father let him go and he cowered down rubbing his bruising face. His father's grib had been rough and hard. Mikael moved down the line to Reese, two.

"Sin Two?" Reese's back straighten and his eyes hardened. "One?" He looked at Dianne who stared back. Both refused to speak. Their father looked between the two with a suspicion, before withdrawing with a step back.

"Seeing as One and Two refuse to speak, Sin Six will sending the rest of the day in the box." terror spread through Erik and he began to plead and beg not to be put in the box. He started to cry as his sibling, Five grabbed him from his arm by instruction and started pulling him away. Pain struck Dianne as she and the rest of her siblings watched her brother being pulled away to the place they all hated most. Mikael watched all his children without an ounce of remorse in his eyes knowing that he was the one to break the vase.