𝘏𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘓𝘰𝘷𝘦 ~ 𝘚𝘭𝘰𝘢𝘯𝘦 𝘏𝘢𝘳𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘴

~ 𝘾𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙏𝙬𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙮: 𝙎𝙝𝙤𝙬𝙩𝙞𝙢𝙚 ~

Sloane ran her hand through Astrid's straight hair, taking in her soft touch. To Sloane, Astrid was like a rare diamond buried under tons of dirt and hard to find. But to her luck, she had been fortunate that their romance was one to quickly blossom. Even though they had a rough start when they first met, Sloane wouldn't have it any other way. Suddenly, a knock came from outside, and both women looked over to it with curiosity. "Who is it?" Sloane questioned. "It's Ben. We're showing them all the... whatever it's called. The glowing ball," Ben sighed. "You mean the Kugelblitz?" Sloane clarified.

"Yeah, the kugel... whatever. Just get downstairs!" Ben instructed. Astrid and Sloane looked at each other with disappointment, not wanting the cuddle session to end. "Alright, up and at 'em," Astrid finally had the strength to get up. She couldn't let Allison see the rage and sadness-filled aftermath of their fight. She had to be the composed and unbreakable woman she longed to be. Sloane and Astrid walked back into the living room, where everyone was waiting expectantly. Astrid tried not to lock eyes with Allison, but her wandering eyes made it nearly impossible to avoid her.

Once Viktor arrived, they all went down the narrow staircase into the basement. As they rounded the corner, there it was-the ball of lightning and instant death. "Beautiful, isn't it?" Fei asked them. "So, that's what took Stanley," Lila muttered. "Along with a few other billion people," Fei added. Lila shook her head as she carefully walked around the glowing ball. "Yeah, who I didn't know and don't care about," Fei scoffed at the comment, sarcastically going along with Lila and saying this was all about her.

"I'm not saying it's all about me. It's just why should I care about a bunch of people I don't even know? The one person I cared about is Stanley," Lila spoke with brutal honesty. "All of us are irrelevant. This thing's gonna take the whole damn universe," Five spoke up. "What's it made of?" "Micro black holes collapsing at increasingly short intervals," Sloane answered. Five continued his series of questions, wondering why they weren't being pulled into it. To which, Sloane didn't have a clear answer for that. "All we know is that you shouldn't exist here, and neither should this,"

"An impossibility for an impossibility. The universe is a sucker for balance," Five nodded. "Grace has been tracking the waves. The next one is due in three hours," Fei said. "Now, how do we go about this? How do we get rid of it?" Astrid inquired. "We trap it," Sloane answered. Five then started asking all these weird questions about the Kugelblitz. But they weren't your typical average questions. To Astrid and the rest of the Hargreeves, he and Sloane seemed to be speaking scientific gibberish.

Astrid didn't know what to think. It sounded so fascinating yet so confusing. "Should I be finding this hot?" Lila asked. "No," Diego and Astrid spoke at the same time, but with the blonde had a grin on her face. Whereas Diego just rolled his eyes. "What do you think, Five?" Allison asked, finally piping up after moments of endless silence. "Could work, or we could all die horribly," Five responded. Eventually, the Umbrellas agreed to "Trap the kugelblitz," The only problem with this was they needed the right people.

"Then for this to work, we'll need Sloane, Lila, Christopher, and-" Before Fei could finish her sentence, Allison interrupted, guessing that the fourth person was Viktor. "Of course, it's always him," Allison sighed. Astrid shot her sister a dirty glance, watching as Allison went back upstairs and away from the ensuing problem. "Viktor, Lila, you guys to keep up your strength. You guys take it easy for a while, and we'll call you when we're ready. The same goes for you too, Sloane and Chris," Fei instructed. Taking Astrid's hand, Sloane and the rest of the small group nodded before returning upstairs.