Away with You - Five Hargreeves [1]

Chapter 20

"Get out of there!"

"Mom, get out!"

"I'm coming after you!" Diego yelled as he started for the building.

"Diego, no!" I yelled as Klaus and I grabbed his wrists.

"Get back!" Klaus yelled.

Diego struggled against our grip as the alleyway filled with dust. I could only hear explosions and crumbling around me. The dust finally settled and the Academy was gone. Completely gone.

Diego ran onto the pile of debris and looked around frantically.

"Mom? Mom!" he yelled as he looked around. "Guys! Come here! Help me search!"

Diego had gotten onto his hands and knees and was attempting to dig through the rubble.

Klaus and I exchanged looks of sadness before Klaus stepped forward and approached Diego.

"Diego, Diego! She's gone," he exclaimed, pulling Diego to his feet.

"What do you wanna do? You wanna-," Diego cried, his stutter beginning to re-surface. "Wanna walk away from this?"

"No," I mumbled quietly.

"What about Pogo?" Diego asked.

Klaus opened his mouth to speak when I heard Luthers voice from beside us.

"He didn't make it,"

My stomach dropped. Pogo was the father that Reginald never was during our childhood.

"What?" I faltered.

"Vanya killed him," Luther confirmed.

Klaus and I glanced at each other for a second before looking back to Luther.

Diego shook his head in denial.

"But Vanya wouldn't-,"

"No, I saw it. Just before we got out," Luther confirmed, cutting off Diego.

Diego looked at his feet.

"Mom. Now Pogo," he uttered.

I rubbed my forehead slightly before sitting down on a pile of rubble. Diego plopped himself down beside me and I rested my head on his shoulder.

Our lives really have gone to shit.

"Guys!"

I lifted my head from Diego's shoulder and saw Five stumbling over the rubble towards us. He had a newspaper in his hand and a troubled look on his face.

"This is it. The apocalypse is still on. The world ends today," Five claimed, waving the newspaper in the air.

I stood up from the ground and looked at him, my face holding a look of confusion.

"You said it was over," I denied, shaking my head.

Five gave me a look of sorrow before walking over to me and showing me the newspaper he had been holding. It was the newspaper we had found the day we had got stranded. The same headline. The same everything.

We failed.

"This newspaper, we found it in the future. The day we got stuck," Five explained, turning to look at the rest of his family.

"No, that doesn't mean anything. The time could've been altered since that newspaper came out this morning," Diego argued, shaking his head in denial.

Five put his hands out, trying his best to explain the situation.

"You're not listening to me. When we found it, I assumed this place came down along with everything else," he told everybody. "But here we are. The moons still shining, the Earth is in one piece. But not the Academy,"

Klaus stumbled forward and snatched the newspaper from Five. His eyes scanned over it before he tilted his head in confusion.

"I'm confused," he mumbled.

"Then listen to me, you idiot!" Five snapped. "Vanya destroys the Academy before the apocalypse. I thought Harold Jenkins was the cause, but he was the fuse,"

"Vanya's the bomb," I muttered in realization.

"Vanya causes the apocalypse," I told everyone loudly.

"We have to find her," Luther muttered.

As Luther came to that conclusion, helicopter blades could be heard spinning above us. My head whipped upwards and I was blinded temporarily by the spotlight that the helicopter was equipped with.

"We gotta go, now. Regroup at the SuperStar. Go!"