∽☂ ∽

"𝐈 𝐂𝐀𝐍 𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐋𝐄 𝐌𝐘 𝐎𝐖𝐍 𝐀𝐒𝐒, 𝐈'𝐕𝐄 𝐁𝐄𝐄𝐍 𝐃𝐎𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐓 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐃𝐄𝐂𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐒."

∽☂ ∽

"𝐎𝐇, 𝐆𝐎𝐎𝐃𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐒!" Y/n was barely able to walk out of her hotel room, leaving Viktor to sleep, only to see Reginald standing next to her door. "You scared me." She put her hand on her chest and chuckled.

He seemed to be waiting for her to walk out, something unusual and strange. "My apologies." Reginald was quick to say sorry. "I just wanted to invite you for some morning coffee maybe?" He showed the way with his hand down the hallway. "After last night's festivities, I'm sure that's what you might need."

Y/n nodded with a smile and followed him down to the main hotel bar which was completely empty, not a soul in sight. It seemed as if everyone else was still asleep.

"I noticed you were among the sober people at the wedding last night." Reginald walked behind the counter and began making them some coffee. "Not a lover of alcohol?"

Y/n chuckled and shook her head. "Uh, no, I just wanted to stay sober at least during my last hours."

"Oh, you have a desire to cleanse your soul?" Reginald asked. "You're superstitious or just very religious?"

Dad definitely seemed to be wanting to make a real conversation with her, a genuine one, that's why it flustered Y/n a bit. Where was he going with this?

"Uh, yeah, sometimes." She took the coffee cup out of his hands as he sat down next to her at the bar. "Why did you call me here? There must be a reason."

Hargreeves looked at her and heavily sighed. "I'm afraid so, my child, because I have something to tell you about." He put his coffee down. "I may have a way to save the universe, but I'm going to need your, children, help."

Y/n sarcastically chuckled and put her coffee down. "Yeah, good joke, Dad. The real Reginald didn't have that sense of humor, not even close. But you're good."

"Oh, but I'm dead serious." Reginald cleared his throat. "May I remind you that your initial desire was to save everything? What changed?"

The girl quickly answered him. "Because we realized that not saving the world is better than saving - we will still come back to the same place: new end of the world, new problems, and no initiative. So, what's the point?"

As Y/n looked down at the ground, Reginald came closer to her. "What drove you to save the world the previous times?"

Y/n had to think about it for a bit. "I...I don't know. It just seemed like our job."

"Hmm," Reginald nodded. "And why isn't that your job now? You're still the Umbrella Academy, am I right?" The girl went silent, not knowing what to say back. "I know you're still capable of the impossible, that's why I'm asking for your help, Y/n. There's a reason you're the ones I chose as my children."

The girl crossed her arms on her chest. "Not really, originally, you just wanted to get as many of us as possible, but you only got eight, because the other mothers were actually good moms and didn't want to give their kids away to a shady old man."

Reginald stared at her before brushing it off with a chuckle. "See? That's why I need you."

∽☂ ∽

"𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐃𝐀𝐘 𝐈𝐒 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐓𝐎 𝐆𝐄𝐓 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐒𝐄." Reginald spoke up as everyone gathered in the lobby for his meeting. They were ready to listen to him, especially after he gave everyone such a cliffhanger, they expected something good from him. "The Norse had seven sleepers. The Blackfoot, seven stars."

The family closely listened to him, not knowing where he was going with this.

"As a boy, I heard the legend of the seven bells." Reginald continued. "All these stories are the same. The village is under threat by flood, by fire, by a night that never ends. A shaman brings his disciples to a sacred cave. He tells them if they can ring the seven magic bells, the village will be saved, and all will be restored just as it was."

Reginald expected to hear some agreement to his story, but all he got was Lila's confusion. "Reggie?" She raised her hand. "Can we get a little less Brothers Grimm and a little more "What the hell does this have to do with us?"

"There is a truth to these myths." Reginald resumed. "None of you can deny what's going on around us. All of the existence will be gone by the end of the day, but whoever or whatever wove together space and time, they left a way to put things back together if the universe ever faced total annihilation. There is a portal in the universe. I built this hotel around it, and on the other side, is the answer."

The kids stayed silent, confused about how they should react to this. "And...we're supposed to, what?" Luther spoke up. "Just stroll in there, ring some bells, and fix this shit?"

"Sarcasm aside, you are mostly right." Reginald agreed with him. "Except for the guardian."

"What kind of guardian?" Viktor questioned.

"Kinda guardian who does this." Diego showed off his two cut-off left-hand fingers to him. "He had a sword."

"It is a force to be reckoned with." Reginald said.

"See?" Luther pointed at him. "Yeah. This is where you lose me."

"This is where he loses you?" Lila repeated. "I checked out at the sacred cave."

"Why would the builders of this "back door" need to have a guardian?" Viktor showed with his fingers.

"Ah!" Sloane pointed at him as if she waited to answer this. "To protect it from people who want to use it for nefarious means."

"That is correct, Sloane." Reginald proudly told her.

"So it's gonna take all of us to defeat the thing protecting the bells." Allison summed it all up for everyone.

"You're actually buying his crap?" Five turned to her with Y/n, standing next to his seat.

"How is a guardian and bells any crazier than time-traveling assassins with cartoon masks?" Allison reminded him.

"Actually, she's got you there." Luther pointed at her.

Five went silent, knowing he doesn't have anything better to say before Ben stood up from his seat and walked over to Dad's side. "I'm in."

"Me too." Diego quickly shot up from the couch. "But I think some of us should stay back. Like Lila." He turned to look at her.

Lila's eyes went wide as she quickly stood up. "Uh...or you can stay, and I can go."

Five looked up at Y/n standing right next to him. She saw his look and whispered to him. "Don't be ridiculous, I'm not staying back."

"No." Allison raised her voice. "This is much bigger than all of us. Nobody can stay back."

"You, my children, are all that stands between us and oblivion." Reginald was getting more impatient by the second. "Are we ready to go?"

"Well, I say we vote." Viktor suggested.

"This isn't a democracy." Ben strictly told him. "Dad's calling the shots."

"Unfortunately, in our family, we believe in choosing by acknowledging everyone's voices." Y/n broke it to him. "I'm with Viktor, we vote."

"The world is ending, and you want to count hands?" Reginald asked in astonishment.

"You're asking us to risk our lives." Luther joined Y/n's side. "I think it's only fair you give us time to discuss it. Privately."

Reginald looked over at everyone and after seeing that everyone wanted the same thing, he scoffed and walked away, leaving his kids behind.

"Why don't we meet back here in an hour?"

∽☂ ∽

"𝐈 𝐃𝐎𝐍'𝐓 𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐓 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐆𝐎𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄, you stay back and wait. They'll be back anyways, I'll stay with you." Five strictly told Y/n when the two were discussing things in their room. "End of story."

"No, not the end of story." Y/n talked back making him stop in his tracks and turn around to look at her. "You don't get to decide for me, I make my own decisions-"

"You're making dumb decisions, Y/n." Five walked over to her. "If you go in there and get killed-"

"I won't!" The girl raised her voice. "If I survived the same things as you, I can survive this as well. I can handle my own ass, I've been doing it for decades."

"I can't let anything happen to you." Five lowered his voice and came closer. "Y/n, if something were to happen to you, you know that I wouldn't be able to forgive myself."

"You won't have to do that, Five." Y/n sighed as Five looked down at the ground.

Five wasn't able to look Y/n in the eyes, so he kept his look facing downwards for a couple of seconds. The girl tilted her head and took his hands in hers.

"Hey," She turned his face by touching his left cheek. "Don't worry about me, okay? There are more important things in life right now, more important than your worries about me."

"What could possibly be more important than that?" Five asked.

"Getting out of here alive so that we could have that family we both so desperately want." Y/n told him, making him go speechless. "I want to finally live our dreams without the constant fear of not knowing how to save the world."

As the two smiled at each other, Five shook his head. "Y/n, I think, there's something going on between Dad and one of us."

"What do you mean?" Y/n questioned.

"Last night, I saw him making some sort of deal at the Buffalo suite with someone." Five began explaining. "I don't know what that deal was or who he was talking to. That's why my gut is telling me that this might be a trap."

Y/n stayed silent for a moment. "You don't actually think that Dad might be tricking us?"

"I wouldn't cross it out of my list." Five answered disappointed. "Which is why I'm questioning his plan. Trusting him is risky."

"Maybe." Y/n nodded. "But not trusting him might be even worse."

"Why?"

"Think about it." Y/n turned her body to face him and cleared her throat. "We stay back, we don't save the world, we die. But if we go with Dad, we could either live out the remainder of our lives peacefully or we could all perish." Five squinted his eyes at that. "Of course, the second choice is less desirable."

"I don't know, Y/n." Five was still unsure about it. "I would usually go along with you on this, but because my old self warned about this, I just..." He looked up at her. "...I just can't bring myself to-"

"To go against your gut?" Y/n cut him off. Five was already expecting the worst from her. "I get it. I can't and won't blame you, but I can't stay here and do nothing. You understand that, right?"

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"𝐈 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐊 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐂𝐀𝐍 𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐆𝐔𝐄𝐒𝐒 which way I'll be voting." Allison began talking as she stood in the middle of everyone. "We've all been through a lot. We've all lost people. But their deaths have to mean something. Which is why I'll be voting to go with Dad."

As she proudly agreed with Reginald, Lila walked down the stairs and followed Allison's speech. "Let's go save the bloody universe!"

"All right, well, since she said yes," Diego turned away from her and walked up the stairs. "I vote stay." He was serious about his decision, but Lila just scoffed at him. "How's that for nice?"

"You're not being serious." Lila put her hands on her hips to which Diego sheepishly smiled.

"It's his vote, Lila." Allison told her, glaring at Diego with a menacing look. "Klaus?"

"I am with Father." Klaus proudly pointed at Dad and stood next to Lila.

"Okay, that's four to one." Allison turned back to the ones that didn't vote yet. "Viktor?"

Allison's hopeful and Viktor's confused looks met each other, making Viktor heavily sigh. "Look, I wanna believe, okay? I really do. I just can't shake the feeling that we don't know what we're getting ourselves into."

"No," Allison crossed her hands on her chest. "But we know what we've got if we don't. We have to go into this together. Viktor. A family."

"You can't just use the word "Family" like that. It's not enough." Viktor said. "I vote stay."

Seeing that she wasn't getting what she wanted from him, Allison turned to others. "Luther?"

"Um..." Luther looked up from Sloane. "...Sloane and I talked, and, well, we're out. Look, we wanna spend whatever time we have left together, and not fighting some guy with a sword and ringing bells and stuff."

"Well, dead even. Four in, four out." Viktor concluded.

"That leaves you two." Reginald turned to look at our couple.

Five and Y/n looked at each other, recalling their last conversation, and went their separate ways.

"I saw the future, and it told me to sit this one out." Five said. "I vote stay. It's time we accept our fate."

Reginald turned to Y/n with one last hope. "I would rather die trying to do something meaningful rather than die doing nothing. I'm with Dad."

A silence set in between everyone. The decision was clear, whether they liked it or not. It led them to a tie and even if the five of them wanted to go, there wasn't enough of them. The family stayed in silence, looking down at the ground and feeling uncomfortable as ever.

"You're all pathetic." Allison said before she turned around and walked out.

"Children," Reginald stepped into the middle. "I can't say I'm happy with this. But I see now the blame falls on me. I failed you when you were young, and I have failed you now. And in doing so, I have doomed the entire universe. If anyone needs me, I'll be in the courtyard...awaiting the end." And just like that, Reginald walked out on them too.

Ben was quick to follow him, cursing everyone else under his breath. Finally, they were left with no hope or goal.

"Was that a real apology?" Viktor asked, turning to Luther.

"The man's never apologized for anything in his life." Luther told him.

"I actually feel bad for him." Diego silently said.

"Don't worry," Five brushed it off. "It'll pass."

As Klaus and Lila walked off, Sloane became more worried. "So now what?"

"We wait for the end." Five blatantly told her. "See you around. It's been interesting." Before walking out like the rest.

Y/n followed his steps with her look before he was gone from her sight. She turned to face what was left of their family and sighed. "It's been nice with you all."

∽☂ ∽

𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐅𝐄𝐋𝐓 𝐇𝐎𝐏𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐒𝐒, everything was done. Now everyone that was left in the hotel was just strangers, nothing more. The silence was as loud as ever to Y/n when she walked to her room, but Sloane's hysterical and bloody screams caught everyone's attention.

The girl ran across the hallways, trying to find the room where the screams were coming from until she ran into Five and Viktor at the Buffalo suite door.

Five glanced at her before the three ran into the room and saw Luther's dead pierced body and Sloane cradling his head in her hands on her lap. The white carpet had turned red from the blood, and so had Sloane's white blazer and hands. The three of them came inside only to see the rest of the family standing around in shock with the opened secret passage door behind them.

"What happened?" Five asked her.

"He went to go get ice." Sloane slowly lifted her head up, trying to speak in between her sobs. "I couldn't-He didn't come back."

"It must have been him." Lila said. "The guardian."

"She's right." Diego agreed. "Whatever did this had a long curved blade." He took a few steps forward and bent down to his dead brother.

"How...how can you be sure?" Viktor asked him.

"I don't know much, but I know knives." He replied.

It didn't take long for Reginald to come running into the suite as well. "Children, what's going on?" He asked before looking down and seeing the scene. "Oh God! Luther."

"If we attacked first, he would still be alive." Ben said with no emotion or sympathy.

Having their moment of grief, they wanted to stay there forever, but explosions, rocking the hotel, and rumbling, heard from outside, made them gasp and fall to the ground. It was clear that their time was running out and it was the hotel's time to go.

Ben looked outside into the hallway only to see that there was about to be no hallway. "G-Guys? Hey, guys!" He came running back into the room.

Five ran to the door where Ben was before running back to Y/n's side. "Okay, we're out of time! The Kugelblitz is here."

"Everyone into the passage!" Reginald scurried over to the open secret door. "It's the only way!"

Fights began arousing among everyone, chaos was in full mode and time was of the essence. They didn't have the time to think, they didn't have the time to talk, and if they wanted to live, they had one choice to choose.

Y/n turned around and was about to run along with everyone until she saw Five standing in his place. "What are you doing? We have to go!" She took his hand and began taking him with her. Only her, Five, Klaus, and Dad were left.

Despite being dragged by Y/n, Five looked over at Reginald. "This isn't over!" Before the couple ran inside and through the tunnel.

They never looked back, only went forward. And because of that, unfortunately, they missed the fact that one of them from the family was missing.

∽☂ ∽