chapter four: peace on earth

Nova could feel the frustration rolling off of Five in waves. The doctor from Meritchect Prosthetics again was not being helpful in the slightest. As they sat there Nova kept glancing over at Five making sure that he was keeping his cool. Nova couldn't help but notice how in his element Klaus looked.

"Sir, like I told your son and his friend earlier, any information about the prosthetics we build is strictly confidential. Without the client's consent, we simply can't help you," Dr. Lance Briggs said and Nova could feel Five tense as he stood beside her.

"Well, we can't get consent if you don't give us a name!" Five growled in frustration.

"Five..." Nova said in a warning tone as she gently touched Five's arm.

"That's not my problem. Sorry, there's nothing more I can do for you," Dr. Biggs said.

Nova can see the anger in Five's eyes. She is ready to jump up and stop him from starting a fight when Klaus speaks up.

"But what about my consent?" Klaus asked and the other three people in the room turned to give him confused looks.

"Excuse me?" Dr. Biggs asked. Nova and Five both share a glance. This wasn't part of the plan. This was Klaus doing what he does best.

"Who gave you permission... to lay your hands... on my son... and his friend?" Klaus asked in a wavering voice while pointing between Nova and Five.

"What?" Nova, Five, and Dr.Biggs all asked at the same time.

"I didn't touch them," Dr.Biggs said slowly in confusion.

"Really? Then how did my son get that swollen lip, hmmm?" Klaus asked as he stood up slowly.

"He doesn't have a swollen..." Dr. Lance began but instead of answering Klaus punched Five in the face. Nova's eyes widen and she quickly stands in surprise.

"Oh my god! I can't believe you would give a little girl a black eye!" Klaus exclaimed, turning back to Dr. Biggs.

"Now, wait a second..." Dr. Biggs began again but Klaus had already turned to Nova.

He mouths a quick sorry to the young girl. Before she could even react Klaus had punched her in the eye. The girl stumbled in surprise and Five shot out an arm to steady her.

"I want it. Name please now!" Klaus hums as he leans on the desk. Five and Nova are both too surprised and slightly impressed by Klaus' actions to even react.

"You're crazy!" Dr.Biggs trembles as Klaus stares him down.

"You've got no idea," Klaus chuckled as he examined the snow globe on Dr. Biggs's desk. "Peace on Earth? That's so sweet!"

Nova jumped backward into Five when Klaus unexpectedly smashes the snow globe against his head. The two of them share a look of shock at Klaus' actions. They knew he was extra but never did they expect something like this from him. In retrospect, the two of them should have known how crazy Klaus was.

"God that hurt!" Klaus groaned in pain. Nova watches as Dr.Biggs quickly grabs his office phone to call security. Klaus has other ideas and snatches the receiver out of the quivering doctor's hand.

"What are you doing?" Dr. Lance yelled in surprise.

"There's been an assault in Mr. Biggs's office! We need security now! Schell!" Klaus cries into the phone before slamming the phone back onto its dock. "Now here's what's going to happen Grant."

"It's Lance," Dr.Biggs whispered.

"In about sixty seconds two security guards are going to burst through that door and they're gonna see a whole lot of blood. And they're gonna wonder what the hell happened," Klaus rambles as Nova and Five share an impressed smirk with each other. "And we're gonna tell them that you... beat the shit out of us!"

"I did not expect this," Five whispered in Nova's ear. The young girl looks up at him and nods in agreement.

"You're gonna do great in prison, Grant. Trust me, I've been there. A little piece of chicken like you. Oh my god, you're gonna get passed around like a... you know you're just, you're gonna do great!" Klaus chuckled and Dr. Lance's eyes widened to the size of saucers.

"Jesus, you're a real sick bastard," Dr.Biggs said with a tremble in his voice.

"Thank you," Klaus said in a low voice.

"The files," Nova said sweetly snapping Dr.Biggs out of his gaze on Klaus.

Dr.Biggs doesn't say anything. He knows now it's best not to argue with the three lunatics in front of him. Instead, he leads them to a file cabinet. Klaus perches himself on top of the counter as Nova and Five lean against it.

"Oh, that's strange," Dr.Biggs mutters as he reads the file.

"What?" Five snapped. Nova could tell he was getting really impatient.

"Uh, the eye. It hasn't been purchased by a client yet," Dr.Biggs informed them and Nove moved to go look over his shoulder and Klaus did the same.

"What do you mean?" Nova asked confused.

"Well, our logs say that the eye with that serial number. This can't be right. It hasn't even been manufactured left," Dr.Biggs said and Nova's eyes met Five's from across the counter. They both know this isn't good. That eye was the only lead they had on how to stop the apocalypse. "Where did you two even get that eye?"

"This is not good." Five sighs as he looks at Nova.

He didn't say anything else he just turned and walked away. Nova and Klaus follow behind him quickly. The whole way out of the building the two younger ones are silent, lost in their own thoughts and plans while Klaus rambles on about how awesome he was in the office.

"Klaus it doesn't matter!" Five snapped when they finally made it outside once again.

"What? What's the big deal with this damn eye?" Klaus asked in annoyance.

"There's someone out there who is going to lose an eye in the next seven days. That person is the only lead we have to stop the impending apocalypse," Nova said quietly and Klaus's eyes widened.

Instead of giving a normal answer, Klaus asked for his twenty dollars. The two brothers begin to argue back and forth about the money as Nova goes to sit on the steps with a sigh.

"You're useless! You're all useless!" Five groans while sitting down on the steps next to Nova and putting his head in his hands. He has always been so in tune with Nova he can tell when she's upset just like that. He senses it now looks up at the young girl and said, "Not you Nova. You're the only one I can count on."

"Hey you know, Five, I've realized why you're so uptight. You must be horny as hell! All those years by yourself it must have screwed with your head," Klaus laughed as he sat next to his brother.

"I wasn't alone." Five said and Klaus looked between the two young adults.

"Did you two?" Klaus asked, pointing between Nova and Five. Prominent blushes grace both their faces as they shake their heads and refuse to look at one another.

"No, we weren't reunited until a few years ago," Nova said quickly.

"Her name was Dolores," Five said and Nova had to hide her laugh as Five glared at her. "We were together for thirty-something years."

Klaus starts to ramble about his past relationships and Nova can tell Five is about to lose his cool. Instead of saying anything Five just grabbed her arm and blinked them into a taxi that was down the street.

"Keep driving," Nova said to the startled cab driver. As they pass Meritech Prosthetics Nova can hear Klaus yelling about his money as Five just holds up two fingers in a peace sign.

"Where too?" The cab driver asked and Nova looked out the window to see where we were.

"Take us to the diner on 21st and 30th Street," Nova responded as Five sat in an angry silence next to her.

The young girl has been friends with the boy for long enough to know that when his plans fail he gets hangry. And she knows when he gets in this mood he needs pancakes and coffee. They sit in silence as the cab drives them to the diner.

When they finally arrive Nova reaches into Five's pocket and pulls out a wad of crumpled bills. She quickly pays the cab driver before leading her friend to the diner.

Five is silent even as Nova orders a fresh pot of coffee and meals for them. She ordered the pancake breakfast with bacon for Five and for herself she got hash browns and eggs.

"Sometimes I wonder why it's up to us to save the world," Five said quietly and Nova was surprised to hear him speaking his mind. When she looks at him she can see the lost look on his face. She can see that his walls are down to her and only ever her.

"No one else cares enough. The rest of humanity doesn't care and the Commission sure as hell doesn't give a shit," Nova responds before Five can respond the waitress sets down the fresh pot of coffee and two mugs for the teenagers.

"But why us? Why were we given these powers? Why couldn't we be normal?" Five asked longingly.

Just then a family walked into the restaurant. It looked like they just came from one of the kids' soccer games. From afar it really looked like the picture of a perfect and most importantly normal family.

"Normal's boring. Let's be honest we're too cool to be normal," Nova joked trying to lighten his sour mood. He gives her a small almost forced smile.

"Sometimes I wonder why my mom didn't want me. She sold me to an abusive billionaire when I was only a few hours old. What kind of a woman does that?" Five mumbled and Nova's eyes widened.

This conversation definitely steered into deeper subjects than the two of them had ever talked about before.

"Maybe she was just a teenager and she thought she was giving you a better life. Or she could have not had enough money to provide for you," Nova said gently and she watched as Five ran a hand through his hair.

"Your mom kept you," He said and Nova stared down at her coffee. How was she supposed to respond to that?

Her heart broke for the man sitting across from her. The weight of the world weighing down on his shoulders. The consciousness of an old man trapped in a pubescent body. A boy who had seen more horror in his life than anyone she had ever met. But someone who would do anything to save his brothers and sisters. Who would do anything for her.

"It was an impossible decision. Hargreeves didn't really give them enough time to think about it truly. It doesn't matter, yes my mom was my family for the first ten years of my life but now I have you and your siblings are like family to me. Family doesn't have to be with your blood relatives but who you choose to be with," Nova explained gently grabbing Five's hand across the table in a comforting manner.

"You're right. I know you are. I'm just so tired of this. The never-ending missions and having to fix everyone's mistakes," Five said tiredly as the waitress set down their food in front of the two of them.

"The way I see it is there are two endings to this. One we stop the apocalypse and save the world. Then we can go take a nice long vacation to Austria, the coffee capital of the world. Or we don't stop the apocalypse and we die but at least we won't have to kill any more people or do any more of the Handler's dirty work," Nova said as she squeezed ketchup on her plate.

"Austria, now that's a place I haven't traveled to yet. You said that's the coffee capital of the world?" Five asked and Nova nodded with a grin as she sipped her coffee. "But you know I was thinking more like beach vacations. You know Fiji or Bora Bora. Somewhere we can relax with margaritas."

"Hmmm, margaritas you know me so well," Nova mused. Even though Nova never drinks she does enjoy a good margarita or mimosa every once in a while.

The two sit and talk for hours after they finish their meal. It has been so long since they've gotten to take a step back and relax. Nova was glad to finally see a genuine smile grace Five's features.

"I have one stop to make before we go back to the Academy," Five told Nova as they exited the diner after the sun had gone down.

"Where to?" Nova asked as they stopped at a street light.

"Just humor me please?" He asked and she could see the vulnerability still on his face.

"Will you pay me with the twenty dollars you were going to give Klaus?" Nova joked and Five chuckled as he shook his head.

"I'm not going to fund your drug habits." Five said while he rolled his eyes.

"Oh, but you already do. You fuel my coffee addiction," Nova said while slinging her arm over Five's shoulder with some difficulty. She never really noticed but in this body, Five is five or six inches taller than her.

"Fine then I'm cutting you off," Five said cheekily and the girl stared at him in horror.

"I can take someone's life just by touching them. Do you really want to be the one who takes away my caffeine?" Nova said in a dangerously low voice and Five looked at her uneasily.

"Oh look at that we're here." Five said as the two stopped in front of The Gimbel Brothers Department Store. They got there just in time because it started to rain.

"What are we doing at a department store this late at night?" Nova asked, confused.

"Humor me, Nove, please," Five said using the nickname he used to call her when they were kids. She just nods as he places his hand in hers and blinks them into the department store.

As they walk Nova stops and grabs a flashlight so they can see in the dark store. Five seems to be on some sort of side mission. She hadn't seen him so determined in a while. Her eyes widened when she realized what they were here for.

"You're kidding me, right?" Nova asked in disbelief.

"Dolores, it's good to see you. I've missed you. You remember Nova from The Commission don't you?" Five asked the mannequin in front of them. Nova knew why Five kept the thing while they were in the future but she wasn't sure why he still needed it now.

"Look out!" Nova screamed when she saw two masked figures behind the display.

She grabbed Five's arm and pulled him behind a rack as the two Commission hitmen rained a storm of bullets down on them.

Nova's Spotify Playlist: Nova Perez's Epic Time Travel Jams

First Published: 12/12/2020

Edited: 07/24/2023

Aesthetic Change: 06/25/2024

Chapter Word Count: 2,536

Book Word Count: 10,513