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❛ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘ. ᴘᴀɴ ᴇғғᴇᴄᴛ​​​​​​​​​​. ❜ ° . ༄
- ͙۪۪˚   ▎❛ 𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍 ❜   ▎˚ ͙۪۪̥◌
»»————- ꒰ɪғ ʏᴏᴜ ᴍᴇᴛ ᴍʏ
ғᴀᴍɪʟʏ, ʏᴏᴜ'ᴅ ᴜɴᴅᴇʀsᴛᴀɴᴅ ꒱


❝ I COULD HAVE TAKEN EVERY
ONE OF YOUR ORGANS ❞

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"And when Five and I went to the Commission, everything just felt wrong," Alexa was explaining almost an hour later. At first, it had been hard to talk to the man she'd called her father but as time went on, she pretended like she was just talking to Klaus and it became easier.

The two Hargreeves siblings were sitting on the antique couch; the blonde had taken a seat at the opposite end (as far away from Reginald as possible.) She leaned her elbow on the armrest and fiddled with her fingers in her lap as she spoke. Klaus had stretched out on the cushions as he ignored his sister's complaining about having his dirty feet in her lap. Their father was sitting adjacent to the pair in a wingback armchair. He sketched in a notebook as he listened to the girl with half an ear.

"I tried to explain it to him— Five, I mean— that it was like someone had peeled off my skin only to put it back on the wrong way. I don't know, I've just never sensed an. . . echo of my power before. My powers have been acting weird ever since we landed in this timeline after the Sparrow's Number Eight broke my dome." She forced herself to look over at the older man, though he barely even noticed. His gaze stayed on the yellowed page in front of him. "Are you even listening?" she demanded.

"I'm hanging on to every word." He finally looked up, causing her eyes to fall to her lap again. "This is fascinating. Both of your experiences are. Ever since I've been off those damned pills everything has been fascinating."

He stood from his chair and walked across the room to where a box sat on a cluttered table. "I'd like to return the favor." Reginald turned around to face the siblings. "Help you to understand who you really are and to understand the inner workings of your powers. Would you like that?"

Klaus swung his feet to the floor to stand from the couch. "There's nothing I'd like more— other than a probiotic yogurt that doesn't make me fart."

Alexa eyed her father warily as the ever-present tingling under her skin intensified. The older man extended his arms exuberantly. "Then get over here, boy!"

Her brother grinned widely and let out a joyful giggle. "Okay." He closed the distance to wrap his arms around the other man.

The blonde's eyes widened as Reginald returned the gesture, but not quite in the way that Klaus had been expecting. One of his hands disappeared underneath his pale aqua jacket to attach the sticker of an electrode to his back. He faced the machine again to turn it on and— as usual— Alexa was too late. She was always too late.

Just as she opened her mouth to warn her brother, Reginald turned the machine on full blast. The electricity ripped through the long-haired man's skinny limbs, causing him to exclaim in pain. He suddenly went silent as he collapsed.

The girl sprang off the couch to kneel next to him. "Klaus!"

Her heart squeezed painfully in her chest, causing her to gasp for air. Her hands shook as she reached out to feel for a pulse against his neck. She could hardly concentrate long enough to count the beats, but her efforts were futile: there weren't any to be found. Tears pricked at her eyes as Ben's death came to the forefront of her mind.

Why did she keep failing the people that she was supposed to protect? She was two for two on dead brothers and both were her fault; she'd sensed that Klaus was walking into a trap but had been too afraid to speak up, just like what had happened with Ben.

Alexa cradled her brother's head into her lap as she looked up at her father through tear-filled eyes. "You killed him!"

Reginald scoffed. "Of course I have, girl. How else will we test his powers?" He paused to look at the emotional girl critically. "Yours we will have to discuss more in the car. Now, dry your tears and come along."

☂︎ ☂︎ ☂︎

Alexa sat in a morose silence in the passenger's seat next to her father. Reginald hummed lightly along with the radio as they drove out of the city. Her thoughts were with her still-dead brother who had been placed in the back of the car, yet to rouse from his untimely death. She swallowed more frequently than usual in an effort to keep from continuously sobbing. Old-Reginald would've had an iron fist about her showing such 'weak' emotions; his echo still scared her enough with this 'new-Reginald.'

"So, girl, explain again to me what you can do," he said after some time. "Surely it's not just those blue shields I've seen?"

She took a deep breath in an effort to keep her voice even before she answered: "that's the gist of it, I suppose. I can also transfer some of my power to my siblings but it weakens my own invulnerability."

"And you've never thought to try anything else?"

That suggestion made her turn to look at him with confusion. "What else is there to try?"

"Well, take our Number Eight, for example. Her base power is energy manipulation, which can be used as a defensive power to ward off attacks. It can also be offensive in redirecting other superpowered advances, such as from those with a greater energy force. From this energy manipulation she found that she could also create illusions because both powers come from her mind. I suspect that yours are much the same: you need mental concentration to form your shields."

The girl gave him a reluctant nod; she didn't want to give her father any satisfaction of being right, no matter how petty the situation might be. "So. . . you think that there is more to my abilities then just what I've discovered? What else could there be?"

Loud thumping came from the trunk before Reginald could answer. He reached forward to turn down the volume of the radio as Klaus' yelling became louder. "I think that you will have to determine the extent of what is possible, but I do have some hypotheses that we can explore."

They pulled over to the side of the road. The older man was the first to get out but Alexa was faster; as he opened the trunk, she peered over the side with worried anticipation until her brother groaned: "oh. What the hell, old man?" Reginald lifted his arm up experimentally. "Did you kill me and lock me in the trunk of your car?"

He checked the time in on his pocket watch. "I did indeed, and you remained dead for twenty-two minutes. I was able to get a full discourse on your sister's powers in before you came to. Totally vulnerable! I could have taken every one of your organs."

Alexa came around to the other side to gently place two of her fingers on the man's neck. She was finally able to let out a deep breath as the steady beat thumped against her fingers. Klaus hardly paid attention to her as he whimpered pitifully from the car. "Why?"

"The point is, if the world is truly ending, then you're both running out of time to truly master your gifts." He picked up Klaus' arm again to get the same, limp effect. "Oh! We have work to do!"

As he closed the lid again, the second Hargreeves attempted to protest: "no, dad!" but to no avail.

☂︎ ☂︎ ☂︎

"So tell me: what do we like to do together? For fun?" Reginald asked.

The blonde snorted with laughter. "Are you serious?"

"I don't understand the question," Klaus added.

The older man glanced first at the girl in the front seat and then into his mirror to meet Klaus' gaze in the back. "Didn't we take any family trips in your timeline?"

"With our dad?" the siblings replied in unison. They shared an amused look at the thought.

"That guy put the 'dick' in dictator," the second Hargreeves explained.

Alexa nodded. "And he put the 'kill' in buzzkill." She turned around in her seat to give her brother a high-five; she was feeling much more at ease now that Klaus wasn't stuck in the trunk or otherwise unmoving. While her emotions were still on a rollercoaster, she didn't feel nearly as close to bursting into tears as she had been upon first seeing her father.

The long-haired man reciprocated her gesture as he continued: "no, no. It was all about the missions with him. Just mission after mission. . ."

"After mission, after mission. . ."

Reginald eyed her curiously. "How is it that neither of you understand the first thing about your powers? Did you learn nothing at the Academy?"

She scoffed. "Uh, I do— they're just screwed up because your Number Eight messed with them."

"On the contrary, I believe that you never understood them in the first place. Why would you stop only at what you've discovered?"

"Because I thought that's all I could do?" Her voice rose in question at the end.

"Well, why wouldn't you push yourself? Didn't you want to be your family's best line of defense?"

Klaus leaned forward and patted Reginald on the shoulder emphatically. "Hey, hey, hey. Don't give Lexi a hard time; she'd done great so far."

The older man didn't look convinced. "I wouldn't call losing one of your siblings great."

At his words, Alexa's gaze immediately fell to her lap as her face heated up with the familiar feeling of shame. While she'd never said anything to her siblings, she'd always wanted to be better, to do better, just so she could protect them to the best of her ability. She'd always, always felt like the weakest link rather than an asset and she hoped that today's training session with her father would open up some doors that had previously been closed. That was the only reason why she was still here, after all, in the presence of the man that had ruined her life in more ways than one: her love for her siblings and the drive to protect them.

She refused to have another Ben.

"Well, it wasn't at all Lexi's fault," Klaus spoke up for her when she said nothing. "Things kinda went sideways at the ol' Academy early on."

"How so?"

"Five got lost in time. Just. . . gone. That was especially hard on our lovely Number Eight. Ben died during the Jennifer incident." Here, Alexa flinched badly. Her hands curled into fists as she kept her gaze focused on the passing scenery.

Reginald— as usual— seemed unphased. "Tragic."

"Oh, tragic? I'm not finished. You drugged your daughter— for years. You turned Luther into a half-monkey moonboy freak thing. You locked me in a box full of ghosts. You had all of us blame Lexi for Ben's death and we stopped speaking to her for years. And then you killed yourself so that none of us would ever get any answers."

"I see."

Klaus' rant was hardly calmed by his father's interjections and he finished up with: "what I'm saying is, you were a terrible father."

The older man nodded. "Yes. Picked that up. Thank you."

"Good," Alexa mumbled. Her tone was distinctly unremorseful of her brother's blunt statement.

"High time I made it up to you! Starting now."

The second Hargreeves let out slightly amazed laughter. "You just murdered me and stuffed me into the trunk of your car while you had a nice conversation with my sister. I have notes, dad."

"I wouldn't call it nice," the blonde cut in bitterly.

Reginald waved an airy hand. "Let's not quibble over the details. A new proposal: I help both of you master your powers, you stop blaming me for the sins of your other father. Allow us a new start."

The girl thought it over for a moment. "I can stop blaming you, I suppose, but there's no way in hell that I'm gonna start trusting you."

"Fair enough," he agreed. He glanced into his rearview mirror. "And you?"

Klaus didn't even need a minute before he consented: "alright— but I told you, I can't control how long I'm dead. It's just one of those mystery-of-life things."

"Nonsense! Dying well is a skill like any other. You simply need the right coach. Your sister doesn't trust me, but do you?"

Again came the immediate agreement: "yeah. I trust you."

Alexa closed her eyes and prayed that both of them would make it out alive— and that she'd live to see Five again.