After his talk with Five, Luther dragged Klaus back to the Academy. Jade had decided to go with them, but not before letting Five know that she needed a shower, and would be back later with dinner.
Now, gathered in the sitting room with the rest of siblings, watching the video that Luther was showing them, she's beginning to wonder if she should have just dealt with being a little grimey.
"I mean, do you really think Mom would hurt Dad?" Vanya asked, watching as intently as the rest of them as the Mom in the video turned her back on their dying father.
"You haven't been home in a long time, Vanya. Maybe you don't know Grace anymore." Luther gave her a side-eye as he said it, letting her know what he really meant.
You haven't been a part of this family for a long time, Vanya.
"If he was poisoned, it would have shown in the coroner's report." Diego lilted, refusing to believe Luther's theories.
"Well, I don't need a report to tell me what I can see with my own eyes." Everyone rolled their eyes at that one. Allison took another swig of her drink, and Diego scoffed.
"Maybe all that low gravity in space messed with your vision." He approached the TV, raising a hand to the buttons on the side. "Look closer."
He clicked a button, rewinding the tape, and gestured for everyone to watch as it continued to play.
"Dad has his monocle. Mom stands up," Diego turns away from the TV as everyone moves a little bit closer. "Monocle's gone."
"Oh, yeah!" Klaus exclaims, throwing some snacks into his mouth as if he was watching a movie. Jade reached over to snatch a few of the snacks, and when he pulled them away, she glared up at him.
"I paid for those." She reminded, and he begrudgingly tilted the bag to let some of the chips fall into her hand.
"She wasn't poisoning him. She was... taking it." Diego moved to lean on the back of the couch, turning back to face everyone. "To clean it."
"Then where is it?" Luther looked around at everyone, as if any one of them might have the answer. "No, I've searched the house, including all of her things. She doesn't have it."
"That's because I took it from her." Diego looked down, swirling his own drink around the glass. "After the funeral."
"Uh oh." Klaus signed to Jade. She nudged him and shook her head, throwing another chip into her mouth.
"You've had the monocle this whole time? What the hell, Diego?" Allison finally stood from her position leaning against the pillar, looking between Luther and Diego in disbelief.
"Give it to me." Luther walked toward Diego with a demanding hand out, but the latter stopped him with a glare.
"I threw it away."
"You what?" Luther spat, and Allison scoffed, taking another heavy sip of her drink.
"Look, I knew that if you found it on Mom, you'd lose your shit." Diego stood, pointing one of his knives right at Luther. Jade stepped forward, dumping the chips that she had back into the bag that Klaus was holding. "Just like you're doing right now."
"Diego, you son of a bitch."
As soon as their fists went up, Jade was between them, humming. The ground began to shake as she glared at the both of them, daring them to come closer.
"Hey! No, calm down." Vanya called out, holding her hands out as she took a tentative step forward.
Jade stopped humming, and the boys lowered their hands, all three turning to face their sister.
"Look, I know Dad wasn't exactly an open book. But I do remember one thing he said." She looked at each of them as she spoke, including Klaus, who was trodding around behind her with a fresh drink in hand. "Mom was, well, designed to be a caretaker, but... also as a protector."
"What does that mean?" Allison chimed in, arms crossed in front of her chest.
"She was programmed to intervene if someone's life was in jeopardy."
"Well, if her hardware is degrading, then..." Luther licked his lips, looking around precariously. "We need to turn her off."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait." Diego's knife went back up as he rushed to defend their mother figure. "She's not just a vacuum cleaner you can throw in a closet. She feels things, I've seen it!"
"She just stood there, Diego, and watched our father die." Luther gritted his teeth. He didn't like it any more than they did, but they had to do something.
"I'm with Luther." Drink in hand once again, Allison did what everyone expected her to do.
"Surprise, surprise." Diego muttered sarcastically.
"Shut up."
Luther and Diego both turned to look at Vanya, who was at a loss for words.
"I- I don't-"
"Yeah, she shouldn't get a vote." Diego interrupted, and Jade resisted the urge to spitball him right in the forehead.
"I was gonna say that I agree with you." Vanya argued, frustrated by the constant dismissal she received.
"Okay, she should get a vote." Diego moved on to Klaus, who was leaning on one of the pillars. "What about you, stoner boy? What do you got."
"Oh, so, what? You need my help now?" Klaus sputtered, frowning as he spoke. "Oh, 'get out of the van, Klaus!' 'Well, welcome back to the van.'"
"What van?" Allison interjected, and Jade shook her head as if to say 'don't worry about it'.
"What's it gonna be, Klaus?"
"I'm with Diego, because screw you!" He pointed at Luther, mostly because of the entire van incident earlier. "And if Ben were here, he'd agree with me."
Jade watched carefully as Klaus hissed seemingly at the table by the bookshelf.
"Jade, what about you?" It was her turn to have the knife pointed at her, and she sighed.
"I think we should ask Pogo to do a check on Mom's hardware so we can be sure before we make a decision like this." She signed, but halfway through her sentence the boys were already back at each other.
"Jade agrees that Mom should stay on."
"She acknowledged that there might be something wrong with her hardware! She's with us."
Jade rolled her eyes, going back over to stand next to Klaus.
"Jade's undecided, whatever." Diego waved his hand dismissively. "As it stands, that's three to two."
"Wait," Luther insisted.
"Vote's not final yet." Allison spoke up, stepping closer to the rest of them.
"What?"
"Five's not here." She continued, and it was like they all suddenly remembered that he existed again. "The whole family has to vote. We owe each other that."
Everyone started murmuring agreements, slowly leaving the room as Diego stood, at a loss.
Jade noticed Mom standing in one of the archways as she made her way up the stairs and felt a pang in her chest. She wasn't sure what to believe anymore.
Pushing it out of her mind, she made her way into one of the bathrooms for a long, hot bath.
******
As a result of her unique upbringing, Jade was unusually independent during her childhood. She wasn't very close to Pogo, or to Mom, but they did have their moments. Especially after Five disappeared.
It was time for another mission. The alarms were blaring, and Reginald was lecturing the kids on punctuality, as usual. Mom, after fixing everyone else's zippers and domino masks, and putting out one of Klaus's fires, came to her last stop.
Jade's room.
The young girl was fully dressed, uniform and domino mask on. But instead of running out to the garage like everyone else, she sat curled up on the windowseat, fiddling with the bracelet around her wrist.
"Jade?" Mom called, but the girl in question didn't look up. She continued into the room until she was right in front of the young hero, and crouched down so that she could see her face. "Jade, what's wrong?"
"I don't want to do this." Jade signed, keeping her head down. Mom hummed, placing a hand on the young girl's arm.
"Jade, look at me."
She looked up, slowly, finally seeing Mom's smiling face.
"I know missions can be scary sometimes." Mom began to sign, and that alone helped Jade to relax a little bit. "But you're not alone. Your siblings are there to protect you. And by showing up, you can protect them, too."
Jade's eyes drifted back down to her bracelet, but it was quickly covered as Mom wrapped her hands around hers.
"You care for your siblings a lot, Jade. Anyone can see that." Mom squeezed her hand, and while Jade didn't understand how a robot could feel so warm, she felt comforted."They need you."
Jade sat still for a moment, processing Mom's words, before sucking in a breath and nodding resolutely.
It was time to go.
*
Jade had her head leaning against the edge of the bath, looking up at the ceiling as she soaked in lavender-scented water. It had been a really intense two days, and this was the first moment she's had alone to really digest everything.
Five was back. Good. But the world was ending in six days. Bad. Her and her siblings are all back together again. Good. But only because Dad died. Undecided. Five has a lead on whoever caused the end of the world. Good. But there are people trying to kill Five. Bad.
She sighed as she sank deeper into the bath, blowing bubbles into the water as she submerged her mouth. She knew how unlikely it was, but she really was hoping she could have a normal life once she left the Academy.
She soaked in the warmth of the water, losing herself in her thoughts as she watched the steam swirl around the room.
That is, until the sound of something metal falling in the foyer put her senses on alert.
Sitting up, she focussed on what she could hear in order to figure out what it was. She had no reason to be on defence yet. After all, it could've just been Pogo or someone, dropping something.
She heard footsteps travelling around the foyer, before a familiar voice sent a chill down her spine.
"Cha-Cha." It was the man from the department store.
"That's our kid." She heard his partner say, and her fingers gripped the edge of the tub tightly.
They were here. In their home.
Fumbling her way out of the tub, Jade tried to listen to every sound in the house, needing to know where each and every one of her siblings were.
She heard the sound of a lighter in one of the other bathrooms. Klaus.
Luther and Allison were talking on the fourth floor fire escape.
Diego's knives jingled as he walked down the stairs towards the bedrooms, straight towards...
Just as the gunfire started, Jade sprinted out of the bathroom, still tying the belt of the bathrobe around her waist. She could hear the shots and the clanging of Diego's knives downstairs, and struggled not to slip as she bounded down one of the other stairwells.
She reached the upper level of the foyer just in time to shout at the bounty hunters, deflecting their bullets as Diego jumped down into the sitting room.
She was quick to run again as they shouted to each other about 'that freak from the department store'. As she moved past Mom's nook, she glanced over, seeing her sitting and humming to herself while she worked on her cross-stitch.
She stumbled, unable to understand what was going on. With all this gunfire, shouldn't she have... noticed?
The sound of fighting downstairs broke her out of her thoughts, and she huffed as she bounded down the side stairs. Mom would have to wait.
She made it into the sitting room just as Luther threw the man into the foyer, right next to his partner.
"Who the hell are these guys?" Allison panted, looking at her siblings in a panic.
"You're welcome." Luther says pointedly to Diego, who rolls his eyes as he panted.
"I was doing fine,"
"Oh, yeah, you really had them-"
"Oh, you ever heard of a rope-a-dope?"
Jade heard the cock of a gun once again, and immediately put herself in between the masked gunmen and her siblings, humming as they bombarded them with bullets once again.
They all ducked and dove out of the way when the shooting started again, with the exception of Jade, who stood as her siblings' shield. She sustained the hum on a single breath for as long as she could, but she was beginning to run out of air.
"Get out of here, go!" Luther ushered Allison out through the hall, and Jade waited until they were safely out of the room and Diego was hidden to risk taking a breath.
She only stopped humming for a split second in order to inhale, but that split second was enough for a single bullet to drive itself into her shoulder.
She screwed her mouth closed as she fell from the force of the bullet, landing hard on her back. The wind was knocked out of her, and she was left struggling to breathe as she dragged herself under the couch.
Her ears were ringing, and she barely registered the words being said and the footsteps trodding into the sitting room as she lay there, practically suffocating.
It wasn't until she saw Vanya walk into the foyer that she started to panic. She struggled to suck in tiny breaths as Vanya wandered into the sitting room.
Jade dragged herself out from under the couch as the man drew closer to her sister and attempted to spitball him like she had before, but she couldn't get enough air in.
Without a word, he knocked Vanya over onto the table, and Jade would've cried out if she had the breath to.
As she crawled over to Vanya, panting shallowly, she caught a glimpse of Luther and the man fighting in the foyer.
"Are you okay?" She signed with her right hand only, being unable to even feel most of her left arm. Vanya's eyes filled with horror when she saw the state of her sister.
"Oh my god, Jade." She scrambled off the table and rushed to her sister, who was having trouble holding herself up. The wound in her shoulder was bleeding heavily, and her breathing was incredibly shallow.
Jade could faintly hear fighting going on in the kitchen as well, and shook her head to clear some of the fuzziness that was starting to cloud her vision.
"Vanya, go." She signed weakly, slumping against the couch. "You gotta go."
"Vanya, get outta here!" Luther called as well, holding the man under his arm as he punched him.
Panicked, Vanya stammered apologies to Jade as she ran off, hiding behind one of the doorway columns.
Jade was just managing to regain control over her breath as Luther slammed the man into the ground. He took one step toward the sitting room, immediately seeing Jade trying to lift herself off the ground.
"Jade?"
Before he could take another step, the man had appeared behind him again, and somehow, much to Jade's disbelief, suplexed Luther.
Jade gritted her teeth as she struggled further to push herself up with one hand. She glared with all her might at the man as he stepped into the sitting room. Sucking in a shaky, shallow breath, she was prepared to use what little she had to defend herself.
She was thoroughly shocked, however, when he took one look at her, and walked away. She fell back onto the couch, staring blankly at Luther's body in the middle of the foyer.
Not even a second after the man had walked out of sight, Allison and Diego burst from the stairwell door.
"Luther!" Allison cried, running straight for him as he groaned. "Come on, Luther. Get up."
"Ah, you gotta cut down on that fast food, soldier." Diego and Allison lifted Luther off the ground, and Jade watched with heavy eyes as all three of them seemed to see something upstairs.
"Get out of the way!"
Jade heard the clank of metal on metal, and choked out a gasp as she watched her brother be crushed by the giant chandelier that hung in their foyer.
Tears gathered in her eyes, and she let out a weak cry with the little breath she had. The soundwave shifted the chandelier enough for Luther to stagger up, tearing his jacket on the metal in the process.
Everything was silent as Luther stood, revealing what had become of his body. Vanya had stepped out of her hiding place as well, and was staring in shock at their leader.
The tears that flooded Jade's eyes were now freely pouring down her face as she watched her brother peer at their siblings, insecurity all over his face.
They all knew that their father had done something extraordinary in order to save Luther's life, but none of them expected this.
Luther kept his head down as he walked into the sitting room, scooping a weak Jade up into his arms. He didn't say a word to anyone as he crossed the foyer, heading down to the med room.
Jade was struggling to keep her eyes open as Luther walked down the hall, unable to focus on anything but the now-growing pain in her shoulder. Still, she brought her right hand to her brother's chest, and tapped twice.
"Jade?" Luther whispered, and slowed to a stop as he looked down at his little sister. She managed a small smile, trying to focus in on his face.
"I'm glad you're alive."
She signed slowly, hoping that he would be able to understand her single-handed signing. Her hand dropped to her stomach as she let sleep overtake her.
Luther watched as her eyes slipped shut, streaks of tears drying on her cheeks. He recalled how she had put herself in between him and the enemy, which was normally his job.
That's how she ended up getting hurt.
Feeling a sting in his own eyes, he trudged forward, hellbent on saving her life.
Five was right.
~
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