Chapter 2
Five scowled as Vanya started up yet another rant.
"I'm telling you. I don't trust her. There's something… off about her."
Five rolled his eyes. "I'm just saying. We can't know when I'll figure out how to get us out of here. It's been nine years, V."
"And I'm saying I'd rather be stuck here than accept her offer. She obviously has some ulterior motive."
"Yeah. Her motive is to get us to work for her. Think about it, my intellect and powers and your brute force would make for a great duo. What else would she want?"
"A whole lot of things! I bet a company dedicated to preserving the timeline wouldn't want us stopping the apocalypse. Maybe she wanted to snatch us up before you made a breakthrough. And I'm telling you that we're close. Your equations are starting to resemble the few bits that Father described in his journal."
Five huffed, but chose not to point out that he had thought he was close many times, but had always failed. "Well, I'll never get it done if we don't find a camp."
It was Vanya's turn to roll her eyes as she threw down her pack. "Let's just stop here, then. It's not like we'll find a better place. Sit. Get us out of here. I want to talk to someone besides you."
She picked up her violin case, which they'd found about fifty days into their stay in the apocalypse, after they'd already moved away from the academy, and walked off with a huff.
Five rolled his eyes again and put a cushion on the nearest rock big enough to sit on.
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Five thought he'd reacted remarkably well to learning his sister had powers. She had called him overbearing, but making a training schedule for her was perfectly reasonable.
Twenty days into their stay in the apocalypse, Vanya had moved a big section of wall with her powers, uncovering a half-rotting body, with one eye and a journal clutched in his hand. Five had found no ID on the body, but what they had found in the journal more than made up for it.
There was sections on all of them, but 4,5,6 and 7's were noticeably larger, with Vanya's being the biggest, followed closely by Klaus'.
On the page where Reginald had detailed his plan to supress Vanya's powers, were the words in different ink and handwriting 'Find her. If unable, go to plan B.'
Five privately agreed that Vanya could destroy the world if she wanted (even though it was already destroyed), despite her protests, but he dreaded what plan B was if it looked like this.
Over time, their powers grew. It was no wonder since they had nothing much else to do but practice. Five had learnt how to teleport with people (or at least Vanya) as well as all manner of objects, and Vanya's telekinetic powers had grown; she had almost perfect control of them, as well as the weather manipulation abilities she'd discovered.
If Five was being honest with himself, Vanya was the thing he was the most grateful for in his life. He didn't like thinking about what would have happened if she wasn't there. He'd probably have been having full conversations with Delores (the mannequin that Vanya and him carried around as a joke, sought of like a mascot) - he'd might have even fallen in love with her. Vanya liked to tease him that he would have.
It hadn't been easy. God knows it hadn't been easy. Especially in those first few months. Vanya had been so angry when she'd read the journal. And she'd never felt anger before, or at least not in a very long time - they're father (no, Reginald, both of them had agreed to call him that) had seen to that. That, combined with her powers, had not made for a fun time. Five frequently had to jump away from her when the buildings started shaking around her and pieces of rubble started flying around dangerously.
Things got both better and worse when she got her violin. On one hand, the music helped her gain a new level of control over her powers, giving her something to focus on, but on the other hand, it had amplified her powers. Watching her get lost in the music whilst she was angry and seeing shockwaves of power literally burst out of her in a way that was both terrifying and entrancing was the first time that Five truly believed that she could have been the one to do this to the world.
Five stared after his sister the haunting notes of the Phantom of the Opera floated towards him a wave of affection welling up in him despite the fight they just had, and overpowering the mood altering effects of her power, which he could feel slightly, even from this distance. He didn't know what he would do without her.
He turned back towards his equations, which he had been working on for almost an hour.
He froze.
He could be onto something. The equations weren't exact but Five thought he could do it. Well, maybe. At least they wouldn't be here anymore.
He closed his eyes, reaching out his powers. Unlike when he was teleporting through space, which was purely instinctual, jumping in time required some forethought - at least that's what he'd learnt since his last disastrous escapade. He reached out with his powers, feeling them pause, before they broke through the barrier that kept time linear. They sored ahead, before he forced his sense backwards, feelings as if he was trudging through mud until… there! A bright spot, an island of weeds in the sea of thick liquid. A place where time was interrupted, where someone had messed with reality.
That must have been him, when he jumped with Vanya.
Five jerked as his mind snapped back to his body.
"V!" he yelled as he leapt to his feet.
The violin trailed off and a few moments later, Vanya appeared from around a bend.
"What?" she asked, her voice still tinged with frustration.
"I think I got it."
Vanya gaped for three seconds before a slow smile spread across her face.
"I told you so."
Five scowled, turning to pick up his still packed backpack, which had the sum total of his and Vanya's belongings.
Vanya put her violin away, where it sat on top of Reginald's journal as well as a book of blank music staves. She pulled her trench coat tighter around herself and stepped closer to Five, hooking her arm around his neck to keep his hands free.
"Should we take Delores?" he asked.
Vanya scrunched her nose. "It might be a bit hard to explain."
Five wilted a bit. He knew she was being the rational one, but he couldn’t help it.
Vanya's lips twitched. "But we could afford to take the boa."
Five beamed at his sister, bending down to slide the lime green feather boa off the mannequin's neck and wrap it around Vanya.
"Bye Delores," they both said in sink.
"Let's go home," Vanya murmured with a content sigh.
Five nodded. Let's stop the apocalypse.