Chapter Text
The six (seven, if you count Ben) were chilling in Elliot's Living room, waiting-impatiently-for Five to set up the projector, which he was failing quite spectacularly at.
Holding a drink in one hand, while the other rested on his forehead, palm facing upwards with his head tilted towards the ceiling, Klaus groaned, "Why am I here again?"
Scowling, Five angrily slammed his fist onto the projector, "Maybe if you've been paying attention to anything I've been saying, you wouldn't be asking such an idiotic question."
Klaus snorted, "Who got your panties in a bunch?" he mumbled.
Allison cut in, "He's just stressed about the apocalypse showing up on our doorstep once again." She muttered sourly into her drink.
This time, Klaus sat up, fully engaged in the conversation, "Oh my god," he whispered in real surprise, "again?"
Everyone collectively stared at Klaus incredulously, when Klaus noticed their expressions, he sighed dramatically, "Why am I always the last one to find out-"
"Got it!" Five yelled in satisfaction, startling everyone in the room.
"Got what exactly?" Diego asked curiously as he peered over Five's shoulder
"This tape holds the key to stopping the apocalypse, all we have to do is watch a 9-10 hour long show of our lives."
"Oh, this will be entertaining," Klaus stated it like it was a simple fact, he cracked his knuckles, rested them behind his head, and propped his legs on the coffee table.
"How exactly did you get a tape of our lives?" Luther asked a little suspicious.
"Hazel gave it to me before he died." Five said simply.
"Hazel?" Diego asked, confused.
"Long story," Five gritted out, "now can we stop wasting time and start watching." It wasn't exactly a question, he made it sound more like a threat.
Diego backed up and raised his hands in mock surrender, "Okay, okay, sheesh."
Five sighed, he was starting to regret bringing these idiots back together and the tape didn't even start yet.
Once everyone quieted down Five started the tape.
The scene opened up to a beam coming from the Earth, the camera followed the blast, revealing it to be hitting the surface of the moon. A large construct of the moon was sailing straight towards the Earth.
"And we're off to a great start," Klaus comments, sarcastically.
Then Pogo's voice could be heard.
"On April the 1st, 2019, the Earth was destroyed in a cataclysmic event.
"What the- is that Pogo?" Allison asked no one in particular.
"Who's Pogo?" Vanya asked innocently.
"A talking monkey," Diego answered simply.
Vanya's eyebrows rose to her hairline, "What-"
"He's more than just a talking monkey!" Luther shouted defensively.
"Enough!" Five roared, and everyone instantly went quiet, "If you keep this up, it'll take more than 10 hours to get through this already exhaustingly long tape." When no one spoke, Five nodded, pleased.
The large portion of the moon slammed into the Earth's magnetic field. A closer shot on Earth shows buildings turning to ash as Pogo spoke up again, "Billions of people were wiped out in a matter of minutes." The scene switches again to show the six of them standing in a circle, holding hands. A blue sort of portal floating above them, "Ironically, the six survivors of the apocalypse," closer shot of them, "were the very siblings who brought it on."
"It wasn't entirely our fault!" Klaus shouted at the screen, who was quickly shushed by everyone.
"Hold on!" On-screen Five yelled. "This could get messy!"
The six of them teleported out of there just before the explosion got them.
"Whoa," Real-life Diego breathed, pausing in his knife twirling as he leaned closer to the screen, "I didn't realize how close we were to not getting out of there on time."
Everyone silently agreed.
The scene opened up again from a black screen to a blue tunnel then to Klaus and Ben falling out of the portal and landing in the same alley all seven of them landed in.
"There we are, Benny!" Klaus yelled, excited seeing himself on-screen. Five decided to speak before Ben could have a chance to answer.
"Klaus, I thought you said Ben couldn't time travel." Five said, annoyed, but not entirely surprised.
Klaus paused to look at Five, his expression screaming 'and you believed that???' before putting his index finger to his lips and shushing him louder than necessary, "You're cutting in on me and Ben's screen time!"
"Didn't this already happen, though?" Vanya asked, to which she didn't receive an answer.
Groaning, while on the ground Klaus gasped out, "That was..."
Ben looked like he was unaffected by the whole thing, sitting up casually with a smile on his face, finished Klaus's sentence, "Exhilarating."
"Perks of being a ghost," Ben smirked.
"Except for being dead." Klaus retorted back, much to the confusion of everyone else.
Klaus sat up, wheezing. Ben stood up, looking around, "Where's Five?" While Klaus was stumbling to his feet, "Huh?" Both of them looked up at the portal, "Five!" Klaus called out. "Diego! Allison!....Where is everybody?".The blue portal disappears, "Oh, they're gone." Ben started to walk out of the alley, Klaus stumbling behind him, talking to himself, "They're gone, like a fart in the wind." He whimpers.
Everyone snorts- even Five.
"Poof."
["Beyond The Sea" starts playing]
"Just me and you again. Great." Klaus sighs. "So where the hell are we?" Klaus asks tiredly, before slowing his pace as he gets a look of confusion. The shot travels to men wearing hats, "Are hats back?"
"I think the question is, "When are we?" Ben says.
"At least we know who the brain of the operations is." Five mused, aloud.
Klaus has a look of absolute betrayal, while Ben has a smirk on his face, "Hey!"
Klaus runs over to a civilian, "Hey! Hey! Excuse me." A look of skepticism appears on the civilian's face as Klaus approaches him. "Sorry to bother you. Could you tell me what year this is," The stranger quickly walks past Klaus and ignores him, "or what day?" Klaus finishes.
"I hope you realize you look like a nutcase," Ben comments offhandedly.
"Nah, Diego's got that covered."
Diego looks over, "Huh?"
Klaus looks over and waves him off.
"Rude."
Ben spots a trash can and walks over to it, peering inside, "Klaus! Get over here."
"Yeah?"
"Look," Ben says, pointing to the magazine inside the trash.
Klaus peers at the front cover of the magazine then lift it closer to his face, "Yeah, I mean, he's pretty my type, but I'd have to see him from the shoulders down."
"Is that seriously the thing you focus on?" Luther asks in disbelief.
"I have priorities too, you know!" Klaus defended.
"The date, you idiot." Ben corrects, his tone clipped.
"Oh yeah." Klaus mutters the shot shows a close-up of the magazine, "February 11, 1960?"
”You've been here for three years?” Five asks, directing his question to Klaus.
”Yeah, why?”
Five just furrows his brows and looks away, swearing softly under his breath.
Some of the siblings exchange glances, “Five?”
”It’s nothing, just keep watching,” he says, trying to get back to the topic at hand.
Luther looks ready to disagree but one pointed look from Five has him shutting up.
"1960." Klaus looks over at Ben, sharing the same look, "sh*t."
[Maxine's Nightingale's "Right where we started" starts playing]
Just as the scene changes to Klaus and Ben walking away with smiles on their faces. Large bold words show up on the screen, "Dallas, Texas 1960."
The scene switches to the alley where the blue portal drops Allison instead, "1961," she looks up just as the portal disappears, there was a flash of a camera and Elliot takes a photo from his window. Allison stumbles her way to the alleyway and looks around, she makes her way to "Stadtler's Restaurant." The chatter inside the restaurant ceases when Allison walks in, a guy points up to a "Whites Only" sign.
"Asshole," Luther mutters under his breath.
"Oh, sh*t!" On-screen Luther yells as he falls on a dumpster. The scene changes to Luther looking around, shouting out his sibling's names, "Diego!" he walks towards the entrance/exit of the alley, "Five?" A truck drives by, "1962." "Allison!" Elliot takes another picture, this time, from the roof, Luther and another civilian yell, "Allison!," "Allis-" Luther stops and looks over at the civilian in confusion, just as the man continues yelling, "Allison!"
"Ha!" Klaus laughs just as Allison raises an amused eyebrow in the direction of the screen.
The scene changes again as Diego falls through the portal, the only one so far who landed on his feet, "Sept 01, 1963."
"What-how?" Klaus sputters. Just as Luther whispers, "Show off."
Diego slowly stands up and looks up at the portal just when it zaps shut.
A camera flashes.
"Help! Someone help me!" Diego looks in the direction of the voice and runs towards it, he turns a corner and finds someone trying to steal a woman's purse, "Help! Somebody help me!" she yells again. The guy starts to run, Diego running after him, he pulls out one of his knives and -using his powers- throws it at the thief, the knife lands in a wooden pool, but not before going through the thief's jacket. Diego walks over to the thief, punches him in the throat.
JFK's voice could be heard from the TV behind Diego, "...and the glow from that fire can truly light the world."
Diego grabs the purse from the thief and hands it to the woman.
"And so, my fellow Americans," Diego notices the TV and walks over to it, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."
"I'm guessing this is where Diego's JFK obsession began." Vanya guessed.
Everyone smirked, Diego promptly sent her a half-hearted glare, which she ignored.
"I'm not obsessing," Diego said quietly to himself, clearly in denial.
The scene changed again, this time Vanya fell through, still wearing her pristine white suit, she grunted as she landed harshly on the concrete, "Oct 12, 1963." She groaned as she struggled to stand up, she starts walking out onto the street which caused her to get hit by Sissy's car.
"Oh, my god-Vanya!" Allison gasped.
Vanya chuckled, "It's okay. Sissy didn't mean to," She reassured her.
"Sissy?" Ben mouthed to Klaus.
"Ben's asking who Sissy is." Klaus translated to Vanya. At the mention of Ben, everyone perked up, while Vanya just looked confused and looked around.
"Who?"
"Ben's here?" Diego asked, softly.
"Uh, yeah and he's being an annoying sh*t-like always," Klaus added quickly, Ben disapproved, he took one of the cushions and threw it at Klaus, which caused him to spill his drink on the floor and for everyone else to gasp in shock.
"See what I mean." Klaus snapped angrily, mostly towards Ben, who had a satisfied smirk glued to his face, visible only to Klaus.
"Whoa, okay," Vanya sat up straighter, and looked around as if looking for a ghost, "What was that?"
"Ben," Klaus grumbled out.
A woman and her son looked down at the camera, but to them, the camera was Vanya.
The woman -supposedly Sissy- said, "Son of a biscuit."
The scene changed to show Five falling through the portal, just like everyone else, he stumbled onto shaky legs and looked up at the portal, and started to yell out his siblings' names, "Luther! Diego!" He turned to look behind him just as shouts and gun-fire could be heard. He walks towards the chaos. The camera turns around to show Five's back and what he was looking at, there were tanks, houses on fire, and, "Nov 25, 1963."
"f*ck," Diego breathed, "That's going to happen in, what, a couple of days?"
"Yeah," Five sighed, exhausted, "but this time we'll stop it."
Jets could be seen over-head, more explosions everywhere, Five stumbles over to a new paper conveniently right in front of him, "Soviets attack US?" he reads. He stands back up, "No, this can't be right."
Soldier, "Gonna get you out. Keep your head down."
The camera turns to capture all the chaos, there were lots of shouting, "Medic! Medic!" and "Hey, kid, get down!"
Klaus shut his eyes tightly, as he began to breathe heavily, this scene was hitting too close to home. Memories of Vietnam launched into his mind, he clutched his dog togs tightly and held them close to his chest. Quietly, he controlled his breathing and looked back up at the screen again, unbeknownst to Klaus, Ben was silently watching him.
The camera turned back to Five, a tank directly behind him.
"What the hell did we do now?"
"You and me both." Five thought.
[Frank Sinatra's "My Way" started Playing]
A missile was launched from behind Five. The camera followed the missile as it made it's way to Vanya, she raised her hands as she blasted the missile mid-air.
"Holy sh*t! I didn't know you could stop a missile." Klaus exclaimed shocked, everyone silently thinking the same thing.
"Me neither." Vanya mused, silently.
The shot made its way to Klaus who took a step forward and shot out his hands towards the enemy, blue figures appeared behind him (the dead soldiers), they followed his command and charged at the SU soldiers. The camera tilted upwards, showing Luther in all his ape glory jumping towards Klaus and landing in front of him, just as a rocket was exploded on his back, Luther screaming the whole time.
There was a second where Klaus and Luther stared at each other until a blue tentacle grabbed a soldier and launched him several hundred yards away, the camera followed the blue tentacle up to its owner, Ben grabbed another soldier and did the same. Then Allison comes up to three SU soldiers and yells, "Hey!" she grabs their attention then rumors them, "I heard a rumor," an echo followed that statement, "that I blew your minds." That simple statement caused the three soldier's heads to explode.
Next, the camera traveled to Diego, who was standing on top of an upside-down car, there was shouting, followed by multiple soldiers, all circling the car Diego was on, they pointed their guns at him, bullets flew towards him just as he was doing a flip of the car in slow-mo, instead of the bullets hitting their mark, they flew in opposite directions as if some invisible force was moving them away from the intended target. Once he landed, he threw a single knife, manipulating it into going through all the soldiers.
"We look pretty badass, don't we?" Klaus sighed dreamily, he was resting an elbow on the armrest of his chair, his head resting on the inside of his palm, his eyes on the screen.
"Five! You sick son of a bitch, where the hell have you been?" Diego yelled once he spotted him. Just when Five was running towards them, Hazel appeared out of nowhere and placed a hand on Five's shoulder, stopping him.
"If you wanna live, come with me."
"He says that so dramatically." Luther comments.
"Is that when Hazel hands you the tape?" Diego asks, directing his question mostly towards Five, who looks mildly annoyed by all the interruptions.
"Not exactly." He answers anyway.
"Hazel. What the hell's going on here?"
"There's no time to explain." He points up at the sky, "Those are nukes, old-timer." The scene switches to show what the two are looking at.
"Old-timer," Klaus snorts, of course missing the point entirely.
"What about my family?"
"Aw, he does care about you guys," Ben comments, jokingly.
"You can't save 'em if you're dead."
Five takes Hazel's outstretched hand and they teleport out of there.
The scene changes to show the rest of the six siblings standing together, looking up at nukes. The shot changes again showing the backs of all six of the siblings just as the explosion reaches them.
"The Umbrella Academy."
