What's your current hyper fixation/hobby?
Emery should have told Five then, about Vanya. He had the boy's undivided attention. Emery knew. He was still propped up on his bed but after Emery had finished, he lay down, head to the ceiling, and arms spread wide as he soaked the information in.
They were silent for a long moment. Emery should have taken the chance but the sad thing was- his mind was anywhere but on Vanya. It had simply slipped his mind at the most unconventional time. The information would have helped them with the apocalypse and go finding out the remaining variables but Five must have figured something else out because his head popped up and curious eyes looked at him, tainted by that gleam of borderline mania.
"How did Dad know the apocalypse was coming?" He sat up and so did Emery from where he had sat down on the same chair from the previous night.
His eyebrows knit together. "He couldn't have."
Five snapped his fingers. "Exactly." He jumped up onto his feet and in two swift steps, he was at the door.
"But the question still stands," Emery said, moving to stand up as well. Five just smiled and stepped through the doorframe.
"Exactly." He said again and then he was gone in a flash of blue, stepping through the void until Emery was alone standing in the place Five was seconds before.
"Fucking hell Five." Emery cursed as he pushed himself through the doorway and down the hall, poking his head in all the doorways in search of the boy.
He hadn't left the academy. Emery knew this much. If anything, he was in one of his sibling's rooms, eager to share whatever discovery he had made. Diego wasn't home, neither was Allison or Vanya and Emery couldn't find Luther so he settled for locating the last room which he could only hope was Klaus'.
He had never actually been in the man's room but when he rounded to the final doorway and nudged the door open, he exhaled upon seeing Klaus and the subsequent Five. The same Five who barely batted an eye upon seeing Emery standing in the doorway, chest rising and falling more irregularly.
"Emery, glad that you could join us. Anyways, as I was saying- get up, Klaus. We're going?" He said.
"Where?" Klaus flitted his head up from where he was laying in his bed. The room was dark, illuminated only by the light that managed to fight through the translucent curtains and the fairy lights strung up.
"To save the world." Five said.
"Oh, is that all? Great..."
"So, Pogo said Dad killer himself to get us all back together, right?"
"Yeah, so?"
"So it got me thinking. I had to jump to the future to figure out when it happened, but Dad, he can't time travel. So how'd the crazy bastard actually know to kill himself a week before the end of the world?" Five explained his ideas, pacing the length of the room.
"Well, you know..."
"Don't answer. That was purely rhetorical." Five deadpanned. "Truth is, our whole lives, he's been telling us we'd save the world from an impending apocalypse."
"Yeah, but I always thought he just said that to scare us into doing the dishes," Klaus said. Emery blinked, twice as grateful that he didn't grow up here.
"Me too. But what if the old man really know it was going to happen?"
"Yeah, but knew how?" Klaus asked, shrugging on a shirt, shoes, everything he was currently lacking when he was deemed near naked.
"He'd have to have been in control of it." Emery began slowly, a vague idea forming in his mind. He shook his head. "It doesn't make sense. He would have had to know years before, would have known when to die, when to release whatever it was. I think he had a part in all of it. But I don't know what or how."
"I have no idea." Five said. "But the fact remains, his plan worked. We all came home. Since we're here, we might as well save the world.
"Oh yeah? What, like the three of us?"
"Uh, well, ideally no, but... gotta work with what I've got." Five said, walking out into the hallway. He brushed past Emery and Klaus followed.
Footsteps thundered through the hall and Emery stepped out to see who they belonged to.
"Where have you been?" Five asked. It was Diego who had come back, disappearing into his room in a flash of dark shadow.
"Jail." Came the swift reply. "Long story. Where's Luther?"
"Haven't seen him since breakfast." Five replied.
"Yeah. Two days until the world ends he picks a great time to drop off the grid." Klaus said.
"Shit," Diego said, reappearing in a new shirt. "Allison is in danger."
"What do you mean?" Emery asked, following Diego as he barely wasted a moment jumping from one end of the hall to the other. He nearly tumbled down the stairs at the rate they were going, stitches ripping at his sides. He didn't know how Five was managing but then again- he learned not to put anything past the boy since he first met him.
"She went after Harold Jenkins. Alone." Was all that Diego offered- nothing more, nothing less. But that was enough. A new sense of urgency was quickly instilled within the group and they were off, pushing through the front doors and piling into one vehicle, Diego at the wheel.
He drove and kept driving, even when Five raised alarm that they were not heading in the right direction.
Diego didn't respond, too intently focussed on driving but Emery caught on when they passed a street sign. "We can't do this without Luther." He said.
And they couldn't- they wouldn't. Because a moment later they were pulling to a stop outside a dingy and dark-tinged establishment.
Emery swung the door open and stepped inside, cautious. The area itself was quite open, inhabited by only four or five people from initial view.
"Look," Klaus said. "Trying a little hair of the dog are we? Hm?" Klaus asked.
Emery didn't know what the man was on about but it sure did diminish Luther's already presently deadened spirits.
"Leave me alone." The man replied, downcast.
Diego looked at them all for a split second before he took a chair and sat himself down next to his brother. "Give us a minute." He said.
"Okay. Come on. Maybe they'll brood each other to death." Klaus said, tugging Emery away with Five in tow.
They weren't exactly inconspicuous with their placement, halfway across the room where they could still pick up on the conversation between Diego and Luther but there they were, absentmindedly standing there, trying not to make it obvious that they were eavesdropping and trying to look normal all at the same time.
The two men spoke for a time about the moon and soon they discovered just how depressed Luther had become with the change of events in the last twenty-four hours. It was alarming really, hearing the words of truth tumble from the strong man's lips. But then Diego brought up Allison and the whole atmosphere of the place shifted drastically.
"You should have led with that!" Luther said loudly. "Jesus Christ!" He stood up in a haste and was the first one out the door.
Diego shouted directions in time with Luther, Five cursed at the wheel, Klaus was dead silent and clutching on for dear life, and Emery had his eyes clenched shut, mumbling under his breath as they sped closer and closer, speed hiking up with every second.
"Emery! Lights!" Five shouted over everyone else.
Emery cracked his eyes open and sucked in a breath, realizing he had sucked all the light out of the headlights. The sky was quickly darkening and they were driving so fast it would be impossible to see a deer before they had already run it over. Emery barely even muttered a sorry before he was unclasping his fists and letting the light drain back out ahead of them.
"What was that?" Five asked, directing his attention to Emery.
"It's Vanya." Emery said, finally getting the words out.
"We know. She's in danger."
"No." Emery said firmly. "She is the danger."
"What?" Five asked, looking at him. The car slowed down a half decibel.
"Head forward, keep your foot on the gas, Five." He demanded, voice firmer than he ever knew it was capable of. Five snapped his head forward and they accelerated further. "Your father knew the apocalypse was coming." Emery rushed out, just managing to slow himself down to make his words intelligible. "And I thought he must have had control of whatever was going to cause it to know when and how it was going to happen. It's Vanya. She takes pills- she says it's for depression but I read her book and she never developed the signs until well after she started taking them. How did your father know? Simple. They weren't depression pills. They were oppression pills.
I followed her and Harold out of the academy that day, before I was shot and saw Vanya bend metal without even thinking about it. It was effortless to her. The light had bended, it shook and it caught me so off guard I didn't see Cha Cha's attack coming. The point is- she is what causes the apocalypse. Harold is there to manipulate her into doing it, into rediscovering what she is capable of."
"Didn't you think you should have mentioned information like this the moment you found out?!" Five demanded from the wheel. He didn't peel his eyes off the road but that didn't stop the heated glare from escaping from them.
"I tried!" Emery shouted over everyone else calling him out. "On several occasions but you couldn't think to let me speak through that big head of yours for even a second!"
Everyone fell silent, shocked at Emery's outburst. Sure, they had seen him explode on Five but never like this.
"So what you're saying is-" Diego started.
"Vanya is not ordinary." Emery choked out. "She is anything but."
"Diego take the wheel." Five said, voice firm and instant.
"Five what-"
But Five was gone in a flash, hand grasping onto Emery as he whisked them both away, ahead of all the others.
When Emery inhaled next, it wasn't to the smell of the car filled with people, and when he craned his ears, it wasn't the sound of people shouting over each other to be heard but of two people fighting, a steady increase in volume and urgency. Five had teleported them into Leonard's house.
"You weren't lying." Five said, leaning around the curtain. They had hidden themselves in what looked to be a broom closet. Emery joined Five's side and sucked in a breath. The air and light seemed to be rippling around Vanya as she fought with Allison, tremors racing through the house as they went.
Emery went to push through, Vanya's name on the tip of his tongue, Allison's name even closer, a ghost of a shout ready to be uttered but Five was there, catching his arm and pulling him back before he could step out into the room.
"We can't just do nothing." Emery hissed as the whole house shook, vibrating to its very core. "Allison's life is in danger."
"You're right. But we're not walking out and you'd be damned if I let you walk right into the middle of it."
"Then what." Emery demanded, fighting to get out of Five's grip. When he succeeded, Five didn't meet his gaze.
"I don't know." Five said, looking around hurriedly for anything that would give him inspiration before they settled on Emery. "Absorb it."
Emery gaped. "What?!" He hissed. "Five, that's insane, you know-"
"We don't know. Truly we've never known what you're capable of. You don't know what you're capable of. You can create light from nothing. Absorb it."
"This is madness."
"Light is in everything."
"This isn't light, Five. I don't even know what this is." Power, a nagging voice said in the back of his mind. True, unbridled power.
"Light is in everything." Five just responded. He looked at Emery then with fire blazing in his eyes. So intense and unlike anything Emery had ever seen but it was filled with urgency, and belief, and passion. "You said it yourself. Allison is in danger. Save her."
Emery grit his teeth and turned back to the scene.
"Fine." He said.