Five had explained to me that we still have Dad to look of to save the world. And indeed he was right. While walking home in silence, a car pulled up near us and a man climbed out. He wore a black suit and passed us a letter. He said nothing else after that and walked right back into the car and drove away.
The letter said for us to meet at a building. Five told me that he knew where it was. So, I trusted him while we walked to this so called building where we were supposed to meet Dad.
Update on the break up: He was slowly started to warm up to me. He was talking like how he was before but always kept a straight face (But he did smile at me once). This was not going let me warm up to him, though. I made sure to keep my distance and made sure to not talk much to him. It was a grudge. I couldn't forgive him for absolutely tearing me apart. Plus, he didn't apologize anyway. All he did was start talking to me, hoping that we would hit off again.
When we got to the building, Five and I kept looking up at the letter and at the building. We knew Dad was rich, even in the 60s. But we didn't know that was this rich.
We walked in and walked up a few stairs before we saw an elevator. When the door opened and we walked in. We stood in silence, waiting for the door to close, but we were met by a surprise. A hand stopped the door. At first, we thought it was the swede, but when the door opened fully. It was non other than my deranged brother who plays with knifes.
He walked in, earning a look from both me and Five. We thought he was the only person coming, but we were met by another person. Allison.
She walked in, and one by one, Klaus, Vanya, and Luther stumbled in, also looking at each other weirdly. "Hey, everyone." "Excuse me." "Hi guys!"
"Good. We're all here" Five said with a smile as the door closed. The elevator went up to 27 floors. It was hella awkward.
When we walked out, we were in a hawaiian themed restaurant. It had coconuts and huts everywhere. I looked around in awe.
"All right, when Dad gets here, I'll do the talking, okay?" Five told us. "Got a few questions for him myself." Diego said, ignoring Five's command. "Hey, we don't wanna scare him off." Five said while walking to the table. "He might be able to help us stop doomsday and get us home." I said.
"No, we need to figure out why he's planning to kill the president." Diego replied back. I rolled my eyes. "This is a matter of life and death, you imbecile." Five said angrily.
"Okay, yeah, maybe we should take turns talking. Yeah?" Vanya said, joining in on the conversation. "Here, whoever has got this conch shell gets to talk." She said with a cute smile. "Vanya, we don't have time for a debate, okay?" Five angrily said, not even looking her in the eye.
"Maybe I should lead. We all know I'm a better public speaker than the rest." Allison said while walking in, also grabbing the conch shell. "Okay, Daddy's girl." Diego replied with a smirk. "Oh, jealous, Number Two?" Allison wittily replied back. "Hey, no more numbers." Diego said. I also looked at Five. He looked pissed, but he kept quiet.
"No more bullshit. We're Team Zero. We're all Team Zero." Diego said with a dazed smile. "Uh, Diego. You don't have the conch." Luther added on sassily. Diego winked before grabbing the shell from Allison. He after threw it out the window like it was nothing. I crouched down lightly in fear.
"Classic." Allison said with a sigh.
Out of a sudden, the door burst open to reveal Dad. He was in a suit like usual and was wearing a monocle. "Not only have you burglarized my lab, set my chimp loose, conned your way into the Mexican consulate, repeatedly stalked and attacked me, but you have, on numerous occasions, called me. . ." Dad said, but quieted down at the end.
"Hey, Pop. How's it hangin'?" Klaus said while sitting down with a glass of wine. Dad sighed. "My reconnaissance tells me you're not CIA, not KGB, certainly not MI5, so. . . Who are you?" Dad asked, also ignoring Klaus. "We're your children." Five said. I also noticed how he sat at the edge of his seat. He must be excited or nervous.
"We're from the future." I said, making Dad eye me weirdly. "In 1989, you adopted us all and trained us to fight against the end of the world. Called us the Umbrella Academy." Five explained. "Why on earth would I adopt six—" "Seven." Allison cut in as Dad spoke. "One of us isn't here." Allison said. "Dead. One of us is dead." Diego said coldly.
"Yeah, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba." Klaus said out a sudden. We all looked at him angrily since this might ruin our meeting with Dad.
"Regardless, what would possess me to adopt seven ill-mannered malcontents ?" Dad asked while mocking us. I was slowly getting angry. "We all have special abilities." Five said, keeping his anger low deep in him. He was also leaning very closely to the table, looking eager.
"Special? In what sense?" Dad asked. "In the superpower sense." Luther said blandly. "Call me old-fashioned, but I'm a stickler for a pesky little thing called evidence." Dad said. "Show me."
"Everybody wants to see powers all of a sudden." Allison scoffed as she sipped her drink. "We're not circus animals, okay? We're not gonna bounce balls on our noses and clap our hands like seals for your amusement." Luther said, sounding a little angry.
Diego, out a sudden, pulled out a knife from his pocket and threw it. It danced in the air before swiftly stabbing into the wall. Dad looked at Diego before writing something down in his book. Everyone (including me), leaned against the table to get a look of what he was writing.
"You are zero for two, young man." Dad made fun of Diego, angering Diego himself. Allison let out a snort as she continued to drink. Diego got up angrily before running at Dad. Five immediately spacial jumped in front of Diego before he did anything reckless to Dad. "Stop!" Five whiskered angrily.
"Now that is interesting." Dad said while eyeing Five. "All right, uh, quick rundown." I said, stepping in because no one else was. "I can stop/pause time. Luther: super strength. Klaus can commune with the dead." I explained. "Allison can rumor anyone to do anything." I ended.
"Except she never uses it." Diego said with a smirk. "I heard a rumor you punched yourself in the face. "
Diego groaned in pain as his hand flung up and punched Diego in the face. "And you?" Dad asked Vanya. Luther put his hand on Vanya's before she did anything. "Uh, maybe we don't take Vanya for a test run." Luther laughed nervously. "Oh, yeah, that's probably not a good idea." Klaus said.
"It's fine. I can handle it." Vanya said with an innocent smile. "Handle it? Last time you handled it, you definitely blew up the moon." Allison also laughed nervously. "No, Vanya, don't!" Luther yelled. We all started to scream protests at her to stop but we were too late. Vanya took a spoon and clanged it against a cup to handle the power that ringed after. But, she didn't exactly "handle" it.
There was a fruit bowl in the middle of the table. Vanya had accidently focused her power on it, making it explode. Pieces of fruit exploded everywhere and fell into all of us. I gasped loudly as I saw tiny pieces of fruit on my blazer and skirt. We all dusted it off of our clothing in disgust.
"This is my favorite shirt. Wow." Klaus gasped dramatically. "Oops." Vanya said with a shy smile. "That was impressive." Luther sighed gratefully.
"Look, we know that you're involved in a plot to assassinate the president." Diego said while standing up angrily. "You were recently hospitalized, isn't that correct? You still appear to be suffering from delusions of grandeur and acute paranoia." Dad said sternly. "Am I? Explain this." Diego said before passing the photo of Dad on the grassy knolls on the day J.F.K got killed.
"That's you. That's two days from now on the grassy knoll at the exact spot the president's gonna get shot." Diego explained to him angrily.
"Well. . . I suppose you've solved it. You've single-handedly unearthed my nefarious plot." Dad said, but something in his voice told me that he was lying. "Is that what you want to hear? You fancy yourself a do-gooder? The last good man who will save us from our descent into corruption and conspiracy? This is a fantastic delusion." Dad said right after. In my opinion, it was kind of harsh. To even more prove my opinion, Diego just stood there, shocked.
"The sad reality is that you're a desperate man, tragically unaware of his own insignificance, desperately clinging to his own ineffectual reasoning. More succinctly, a man in over his head." Dad finally finished off.
The silence in the room was unbearable. I looked up at Diego to see that he was crying. My mouth gaped open. I was in shock. Diego was always a mad and "rough and tough" guy. I would never in a million years think he would be crying. But, he was.
"You're wr- wrong." Diego stuttered before sitting down slowly.
"Look, forget about the president. We have a catastrophic war coming in five days. We need to figure out how to stop it." Five said concerningly. "War? Men will always be at war with each other." Dad brushed it off.
"No, this isn't just some war. We're talking about a doomsday. The end of the world." I said. "Well. . . You're the special ones, aren't you? Why don't you band together and do something about it?" Dad asked.
I was about to reply back but Klaus started acting weird. Klaus started to shake and grunt uncontrollably. We all looked at him weirdly, including Dad. "Is he having a seizure?" Allison asked. "Overdosing probably." I sighed sadly. "Should we do something?" Luther asked, sounding actually concerned.
"Klaus! Now is not the time. What are you doing?" I whisper yelled at him. "I'm. . ." Klaus said while continuing to shake. "Out with it, boy." Dad ushered. ". . . Ben!" Klaus yelled randomly. I looked at him as if he was crazy. He started to gasp and pant loudly while also sweating.
"Well. . . Thank you for coming. I've seen about enough." Dad said before getting up with his books.
Luther all of a sudden got up and ripped open his shirt. I looked away awkwardly. "Look at what you did to me. Look at it!" He started to yell. All Dad did was look at him weirdly.
"You two in the culottes. A word, in private?" Dad told me and Five. We both ran behind him and followed him. He just moved seats to the bar side table where we all sat on tall stools. Some people ushered the rest of my siblings out of the room and down the elevator. Now that we were alone, Five started to talk.
"You two seem to be the sensible one of the bunch." Dad started. "Maybe because we've been through more them" I said quietly. Dad looked at me from the side of his eye, "But certainly the smartest" he complimented with a smile. I didn't reply.
"The other night you quoted Homer at me. Why?" Dad asked after waiting a while. "You forced us all to learn it as kids." I said. "In the original Greek, no less." Five added. Dad just nodded.
"This world ends in five days if we don't get out of the timeline." Five started to explain. "Worlds end. Paleozoic, Jurassic, and so on. We can do something about this one. I need your help." I continued to Dad. "You're my last sane option. Otherwise, I gotta make a deal that I really don't wanna make." Five ended.
"What do you know about time travel?" I asked. "I know it's akin to descending blindly into the depths of freezing waters and reappearing. . ." Dad started to say. All this sounded like complete bullshit to my brain.
"What transpired when you tried traveling before?" Dad asked. "I botched it." Five sighed. "How?" Dad asked. "I jumped too far forward, got stuck in the future for 17 years in an apocalypse." Five said.
"And what about you?" Dad asked while looking at me. I looked down at my thighs, "well— I got angry at you once for ignoring me and tried to time travel. Instead, I got myself stuck on the borders of time for 16 years". Dad nodded in response.
"Then we both brought our powers together and jumped too far backwards. . . Except this time we brought our entire family with us."
"Maybe your both appetites is disproportionate to the size of your abilities." Dad said. He was basically saying that we were trying to much of our abilities. "Start small. Seconds, not decades." He said. He was right, though.
"Seconds?" I asked. "Look, no offense, but I need a bit more time for what I'm trying to accomplish." Five explained. "So much can change in a matter of seconds. One could overthrow an empire. One could fall in love." Dad said.
"I was really hoping you had more than that." Five sighed. "I'm sorry I can't be of more help." Dad said. "I'm sorry, too. I gave you such a hard time as a kid. I didn't know any better." Five laughed a little.
"Yeah, same. I used to yell and throw utensils at you. But, you were always unfair with me, which I never understood why." I said sadly. "Unfair in what way?" Dad asked me. "You never let me practise with my siblings and you always told me I was 'power-less' because I couldn't exactly control it." I laughed at the memories.
"I'm sorry" He sighed, "I'll keep that in mind when I adopt you in the future" He said with a smile. I smiled back at him.
"Want a drink?" Dad asked since both me and Five since we were technically old enough to. "I shouldn't" I said with an awkward smile. But it was too late and the bartender had already passed it to me.
I watched as Five gulped it down faster than I could breathe. I looked at him as if he was crazy. He saw me looked and smiled. I didn't smile back, for many reasons.
I took small sips on my drink since this wasn't a taste I was used to. After I finished, we left. It was still very awkward between me and Five. Especially the ride down the elevator. The talk with Dad actually went kinda well (except for the fact that Dad got pissed at my siblings).
Maybe life wasn't as bad as I thought.
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