Various The Umbrella Academy One Shots

New Ability

The very air itself seemed to be ringing with some intent that no unfortunate listener could ever hope to identify what on earth the intention happened to be, even if there was time for anyone to stop and think long enough on the matter to ponder meaning behind sound. But, in the lives of superheros, this was a luxury that was rarely afforded, and even less likely to be granted.
The children, for they were but children thrust into a danger that no children deserved, were in quite a pickle, as it seemed there was something bestial occupying both the land, the skies, and the waters and these beasts were far greater than four children seemed. The shadow was all there was to be seen of the something large and almost resembling an archaeopteryx in excessive technicolour that circled overhead, waiting for the perfect moment to swoop down with some foul intent in its mind. Upon the bridge stamped an impatient, zebra striped beast that looked almost what one could imagine a rendition of an elephant might look like if one had never seen one and so needed to use word of mouth, a large, eyeless head rolling as it listened for the faintest signs of life so it would know where to charge. In the canal beneath the aforementioned bridge lay some huge, tentacled behemoth - the sort that brought about images of the inter-dimentional beast that the recently deceased Ben could bring forth, though this was a wound that was too fresh to poke at - reached out in search of prey to drag back down into the watery depths it had claimed as its own. Worse still, the man, the one that had forced this fate upon the innocent eagle, elephant, and octopus that had been happily residing in a nearby zoo, had managed to sneak away while the havoc was being brought about. Thankfully there was one of the siblings able to pursue him, but this left the remaining four with even less on their side than they had previously.

"Alright, Kraken, Séance," Luther hissed out under his breath to avoid drawing attention, using the code names their Father had given them, "Head to the left, Rumor and I- Diego!" Any strategising was immediately thrown to the side as the moment Number One started giving orders, Number Two immediately went against this.

Dashing out from where they were hiding, Diego Hargreeves charged the elephantine beast, drawing some of the collection of knives he had strapped to him out of their numerous holsters, the blade glittering in the mid-afternoon sunlight. This was all very dramatic, and definitely heroic to witness, but unfortunately the action was done out of a desire to not listen to Luther rather than coming out of any better plans having been formulated. His footsteps were thundering, echoing against the stone of the bridge until, all of a sudden, they weren't.

Too fixated on the land-dwelling monstrosity, he had not noticed the aquatic entity had also become aware of his presence and, without even a sense of remorse or clear malicious intent - and of course it didn't, it was a beast doing what it was made to do, and so there was nothing technically nothing wrong with this in the sense of the beast's own morality - the almost (presently) ironically named The Kraken was hoisted up high into the air and then dragged down into the water. The lad, all scars and scabs and reckless certainty, had been there one moment and had wholly vanished the next. This was frightening enough for the onlookers, his siblings who had all too recently seen one of their own killed, but for the one who had been captured it was something else entirely.

It had happened so quickly that Diego had not had the chance to take a breath before he was under the water and was being dragged down deeper and deeper, further and further away from the air that he had gotten far too accustomed to breathing. Panic fluttered in his chest all of a sudden, a frantic bird desperate to be freed from its bony prison. With a blade in each hand, he hacked away at the slimy appendage that had sort to do him harm, hoping that he might free himself before the lack of oxygen drained him of this ability.
But, as seconds turned to minuted, the ache in his lungs that he had been expecting never came.

In fact, not only did his lungs feel perfectly fine despite having gone for a good seven minutes without a breath, he didn't even feel the expected need to take a breath at all. Had he ever? He'd certainly been told people were supposed to breath, and so had gotten into the habit of it, but Diego couldn't recall a time that he had actually needed this to go about his ordinary daily functionings.

But there was far more important things to think about at that moment, so the logistics of breathing were far from his mind.

The battle that raged was mighty, knives hacking away at the appendages that intended to do him harm, and when blades weren't helping as much, his fists and legs joined the battle until, finally, he managed to free himself from the beast. Rather conveniently, a matter of moments after he had won his freedom, the octopine beast was all of a sudden reduced to nothing more than that, the simple octopus it had once been, swimming away from the apparent danger it might have still been in.
Clawing his way back to the surface, adrenaline still heightening his senses, he simply floated there for a moment.

The other siblings had managed to bring an end to the whole ordeal in the time it took for him to win his freedom. Five had managed to find the person that had caused this and had dragged the man back to the others, Luther had the villain held up in the air by the scruff of his coat, ignoring the pitiful whining that was being put on to try and win sympathy. It was, as it always was, a successful venture, Allison was contacting the zoo so that the animals, now ordinary animals, could be returned to safety before any more harm came to them, and Klaus was keeping an eye on the eagle in case it happened to try and fly off again.

"Holy shit!" came the exclamation from Klaus at the moment he caught sight of Diego dragging himself up onto dry land, the necromantic lad heading away from the group to dash over to his bedraggled, soaked sibling.

"Klaus?" responded the waterlogged youngster, "I'm not..." he paused, very aware that seeing the one who could see the dead was not necessarily the best of signs, "I'm not dead am I?" he continued, a clear hesitation dragging down his voice.

"No...?"

"But I was under for... the hell?" If his brother's reply had not been enough to make sure he knew he was still among the living, the pounding of his heart in his ears had proved that he was still alive somehow, despite all the odd.

Somehow, despite having not had a breath since he had entered the water, and had not yet resumed doing so, Diego was still perfectly fine and had felt no different than when he was breathing. No oxygen deprivation, no dizziness, nothing worse than feeling soggy after being trapped underwater for far longer than anyone would have liked.
This left The Kraken with much to think upon.