"DIEGO, THIS IS A SETUP," insisted Luther as he held the invitation that him and Diego got the day before.

It was near one o'clock while Diego, Luther, and Vanya were in the living room space of Elliots store.

Diego shrugged. "Maybe. But we should go anyway."

"Says the guy who's already been stabbed once this week."

"Oh, don't worry," Diego gave a look. "me and him are gonna have words."

"Would you tell him that he's nuts?" asked Luther.

"I think we should go," Vanya spoke up softly.

"Go where?" Elli walked in as she put some stray, straight hairs behind her ear. She was asleep in the guest room Elliot had and woke up a few minutes prior.

She didn't mean to wake up so late. One minute she was talking to Mace at the table, the next she looked at the clock and it was four twenty-three a.m. Elli didn't mean to talk his ears off, or bore him out—to his surprise, he didn't mind her talking—but she didn't know she would take up that much time.

"This," Luther handed her the invitation.

To my pursuers: I, Reginald Hargreeves,
request the pleasure of your company
for a light supper on the 20th
of November, 1963, half
past seven o'clock.

1624 Magnolia Street.

"See?" smiled Diego.

"Vanya, of all people, you should hate Dad the most," insisted Luther as Elli handed the invite back to him.

"Come on, can he really be that bad?" Vanya put her hands her thighs.

"Okay, well, let's see." Elli sat down next to Vanya as Luther started to explain. "He isolated you from the rest of the family."

"Kept you hopped up on pills," Diego included.

"And he brainwashed you into thinking you had no powers," spoke Luther as he stuffed his mouth with eggs.

"Jesus, this guy. . ." Vanya said softly to the side.

"Yeah."

"I mean, come on, I have to meet him," she smiled.

"You already know how this is gonna go," Luther pointed to Diego. "Dad is gonna play all his little mind games on us, get into our heads," Luther tapped his head. "and he's gonna turn us all against each other. You watch."

"Luther, we're not 12 anymore," Diego turned to his brother. "All right? We're grown-ass men," he looked to Vanya. "And women. Hey," he sighs, getting Luthers attention. "Hey. We can handle him. Wanna know what's different this time?"

"What's that?" grumbled Luther.

"You got me. We go in there as a united front. No more "Number One," "Number Two" bullshit. From now on, it's. . ." he sat beside Elli. "Team Zero."

""Team Zero"?" questioned Luther.

"Team Zero. All the way," he held out his fists to his siblings who gave him weird looks.

Elli smiled then high-fived his fist, and he gave a lopsided smile. They heard small pattering feet (or set of feet) , come their way. They all turned to the open space near the kitchen to see Cutie with a light pink tutu around her waist. Elli moved forward awing and picked the rabbit up.

"You got her a tutu?" Elli looked towards Vanya. "That's so cute," she smiled.

Vanya nodded. "Yeah. Brought her home with me last night then she stayed with me till mornin'. She had a fun time with Harlan. Think she was looking for you, though. She was sniffin' around and looking through the rooms."

"Thank you for taking care of her." Diego took Cutie out of Elli's hands and held her in a proper position before starting to pet her.

•••••

Elli held Cutie in her hands as she walked out of the cab and up to 1624 Magnolia Street. "Thank you, sir. I hope I wasn't a hassle," she thanked the cab drive.

He was a brunette haired, pale skinned fellow. "You're welcome, hon. But next time, please have an adult with you."

"Oh," hummed Elli. "I would, but my parents are dead. . . so I guess that won't work." the mans eyes widened. "Have a great day! Thank you so much!" she slammed the door.

The driver, she learned his name was Elio, looked forwards with widened eyes as he watched the girl walk towards the huge building. "Just smile and nod," he mumbled to himself, putting the car in drive. "Smile and nod," he spun the wheel and drove away. Elio was a bit confused on why she had a bunny wearing a tutu in her hands, but then realized he's probably seen weirder things than that.

Elli was about to look at her watch to see the time but then remember she took it off. She shook her head to get the thought of Debbie out of her brain, but it kept coming back. She still didn't know what she did wrong.

Was Debbie uncomfortable? Was she moving too fast? Did she finally listen to her father and now agree with him?

Elli moved into the big complex and saw a big clock above the door to see it was seven-fifteen. She headed up a big set of stairs, into a small hallway and was now faced with the setting of two steal doors. There was a button that had an up arrow on the right side of it, so she pressed it.

The doors opened and she moved back in surprise. She entered the box shaped contraption and looked to the right to see a bunch of buttons. They all had numbers to the right them—some had symbols—and Elli was curious.

Very curious.

So, she pressed a button. Or two. Or three. Or four. Okay, she pressed all of them. It was a joyful experience. The buttons lit up when she pressed one which induced her to press others. As soon as they were all lit up, she pressed a button on the bottom which looked like a greater-than and a less-than sign pushing towards each other with two lines in the middle.

A/N — >||< like this.

The button wasn't illuminated so she pressed it then heard a ding and the box started to move. Elli hugged Cutie and started to back into the wall.

"What in the world?" she looked around. The doors opened and it was a different setting. There was a plant beside the two doors and across was a wooden, old bench.

Was this witchcraft? Magic? Maybe she appeared in another timeline? Maybe—

The door closed on Elli and the box started moving again. It went up a floor then stopped. It did that a total of twenty-two times. She was now on the twenty-forth floor and the doors were open for a long minute.

"Do you think it stopped, Cutie?" Cutie flared her nostrils and started to sniff Elli's shirt. "I hope it doesn't close again too."

They were sat in the right corner of the elevator holding onto each other. Well, more like Elli holding onto Cutie and Cutie just being adorable.

The doors started to close again and the elevator started to move. Elli didn't press any buttons or move so she thought this was the end.

She started to scream at the top of her lungs and held onto her animal, hiding her face into Cuties stomach. The box stopped and the doors opened.

"Elli?" called Five as he stepped into the box.

"Five?" Five helped her off the floor and put Cutie onto the ground and she started to hop out of the death trap. "Five! Help me! This thing is a death trap! It's going to kill me," she grabbed his arm.

"The buttons. The terrible buttons," pointing to the buttons labeled with floors numbers she spoke. "Never again. It brought me up and down and up and down and up and down. No more," she shivered. "No more."

Elli stepped out of the elevator and bumped into Diego who was holding Cutie. "Elli, we have to go to the tenth floor," Five called after her.

"I'll take the stairs!"

•••••

Elli will never take the stairs again in her life. Elli always wants to get her cardio in, yes, but she didn't want this. It was horrible. There were so many stairs.

So many stairs!

She felt like she was going to die. Maybe she was just weak and didn't get her steps in, but it was really hard. It's not like Elli was unfit or anything, this just exhausted her from moving around the whole day.

Even for fun, her and Shirley would race up the school stairs that lead from the first floor of the school to the second then the third. She lost all the time—obviously—but still at least got some exercise in.

Elli pushed the stair doors open to the tenth floor and walked in to see a tiki lounge setting with Hawaiian music playing and some decorations. The six people she were looking for were sitting at a circle table chatting amounts themselves. Who she didn't notice was Reginald in one of seats as well.

A knife flew through the air and landed on a wooden pole next to Elli causing her to yelp and jump into the air.

"Christ almighty! Don't do that," she placed a hand on her chest and took a breather.

"And, who you might be?" Reginald asked and Elli gave wide eyes.

"I'm Elliana," chuckled the young one awkwardly and gave a wave. "I'm just gonna. . ." she moved over to a chair that was in the middle of Diego and Klaus.

"What are you writing?" Diego tried to look over at Reginalds notebook.

"You are zero for two, young man," he spoke and Allison choked on her drink.

Elli didn't quite get what it meant, and didn't know if it was serious or not. She didn't even have time to register what was happening when Diego jumped up from his seat and ran towards Reginald. Five quickly then spacial jumped near him and put a hand on his chest.

"Stop!" he whisper shouts.

"Now that is interesting," Reginald becomes intrigued.

"All right, uh, quick rundown," Five began to sit down. "Luther: super strength. Klaus can commune with the dead. Allison can rumor anyone to do anything—"

"Except she never uses it," inserted Diego as he sat back in his seat.

Allison gave an eyebrow raise as she turned towards number two. "I heard a rumor. . . you punched yourself in the face."

Diego punched himself in the face. "Aah!" Elli chuckled and Mace let out a full blown laugh as he appeared behind her sitting at one of the two chaired seats. Elli turned towards him as Diego groaned, "Damn it!" and held his nose as Allison sipped her drink with attitude.

"And you, child?" Reginald called and Klaus turned her around.

"I'm sorry?" she pardoned herself.

"Your abilities," he waved off.

"Oh, yes sir. Well, I have—"

"She has invisibility and seeing the dead, but they both progress slowly overtime," filled in Five and Elli gave a shocked look.

"I can see all of the dead? "Progress slowly overtime"? How do you know that?"

Five was tongue tied. "Well. . . just a guess," he snuck into his seat as Elli eyed him suspiciously.

"And you?" Reginald looked to Vanya.

"Uh, maybe we don't," Luther put a hand on Vanya's thigh. "take Vanya for a test run."

"Oh, yeah, that's probably not a good idea," nodded Klaus in agreement.

"Yeah," agreed Allison with a nod.

"It's fine," she shrugged. "I can handle it," Vanya insisted.

"Handle it? Last time you handled it, you definitely blew up the moon," inserted Allison as Vanya began to pick up a spoon.

"No, Vanya, don't!" Five called out.

A high-pitched ringing went around the room as Vanya tapped the glass in front of her with a spoon and the sound resonated off the wall and to the middle center piece. The fruit center piece exploded, going everywhere and everyone shielded themselves from the flying pieces of produce. As the explosion finished, they all wiped themselves off and groaned in annoyance.

"This is my favorite shirt," Klaus complained and wiped off himself.

"Wow," Luther gave a shocked answer.

"Oops," Vanya shrunk into her seat as Elli started to clap for her and smile.

Cutie left Klaus's arms and hopped onto the floor. She was covered in assortments of fruits and her tutu was surprisingly still intact. "Oh, baby," Elli picked her up. "covered in all these fruits. Here, have a small piece of a blueberry, bub," she fed Cutie a piece of a blueberry that was on the table and the rabbit ate it happily as her owner cleaned her off.

"That was impressive," Luther sighed.

"Look, we know that you're involved in a plot to assassinate the president," Diego spoke up.

"You were recently hospitalized, isn't that correct?" asked Reginald. "You still appear to be suffering from delusions of grandeur and acute paranoia."

"Am I?" Diego reached into his pocket and got out the picture of him on the grassy knoll. "Explain this. That's you," he tapped it lightly. "That's two days from now on the grassy knoll at the exact spot the president's gonna get shot."

Reginald took the picture into his hold. "Well. . . I suppose you've solved it. You've single-handedly unearthed my nefarious plot." Diego began to smile. "Is that what you want to hear?" his smile faltered.

"You fancy yourself a do-gooder? The last good man who will save up from our descent into corruption and conspiracy? This is a fantastic delusion," Reginald made certain.

"The sad reality is that you're a desperate man, tragically unaware of his own insignificance, desperately clinging to his own ineffectual reasoning. More succinctly, a man in over his head."

"You're wr—wrong," Diego stuttered and Elli put a hand on his back.

She was thanking Jesus and God himself/herself that the old man in front of her and the other six individuals—not including Mace who was currently dead—wasn't her father.

"Look, forget about the president. We have a catastrophic war coming in five days. We need to figure out how to stop it," spoke Five.

"War? Men will always be at war with each other," Reginald lifted an eyebrow.

"No, this isn't just some war. I'm talking about a doomsday. The end of the world."

"Well. . . you're the special ones, aren't you? Why don't you band together and do something about it?"

"All right. Screw it," spoke Ben as he headed towards Klaus. He ran full speed and mushed into Klaus.

Klaus grunted as his arms shot into the sky and he started to shake. Elli had no clue on what was happening. She was just simply picking fruit off of the table and eating them simultaneously as Cutie tilted her head then plopped her chin on the table, scanning the others with her bunny eyesight.

"Is he having a seizure?" asked Allison as she sat still.

"Overdosing probably," Diego put his head down.

"Should we do something?" Elli asked.

"Klaus!" whispered Five. "Now is not the time. What are you doing?"

"I'm. . ." Klaus turned to Reginald, hands still in the air.

"Out with it, boy," the old man insisted.

". . . Ben!" Klaus—well Elli guessed—and Ben fell to the floor and started to pant and shudder.

"Well. . ." Reginald closed his journal and stood up. "thank you for coming. I've seen about enough."

"No, I—" Luther stuttered. Just as Reginald was about to leave, Luther slammed his fist onto the table and ripped open his shirt. "Look at what you did to me."

Allison sputtered her drink out of her straw and quickly covered her mouth as Diego rapidly moved over to the Elli to cover her eyes. Leading her to ask, "Who turned out the lights?"

"Look at it!" Luther shouted once again as he pointed to his hairy chest.

"Wow," exhaled Mace with a sigh and flopped back in the seat. "he really is King Kong," he slid down the seat and landed on the floor.

Cutie jumped from Elli's lap and jumped to the floor. She hopped to the floor and made her way over to where the pale, black curly-headed individual laid.

"Oh, shit," sighed Five. "Why?" he collapsed back in his chair.

"You in the culottes," Reginald pointed to Five as Diego took his hands off of Elli's eyes as Luther was now covered up. "A word, in private?"

Five nodded and took off behind Reginald.

Cutie began to sniff around near Mace and he perked his head up and looked at the gray-white furred animal. Elli turned around and noticed the interaction.

"Check, please," Allison put a hand up.

Elli began to think hard of Mace touching the orange in two-thousand nineteen and him giving her a hug the day before. When blue began to glow from her palms and her eyes turned a faint light blue, Mace glowed the same color before becoming his own skin color.

As soon as he stopped glowing, Cutie started licking his face. "Hi, Cutie. Nice to meet you," Mace scrunched his face as he was now being covered in slobber. "Your breath smells like fruit." Elli chuckled as Mace sat up, and started to pet the two-year-old rabbit.

He hasn't felt this type of happiness in a long time.

•••••

Luther, Diego, Allison, Klaus, Ben, Vanya, Elli and Mace were standing in the elevator after the doors closed and the elevator dinged as it went to the second floor. That was a mouthful.

"Well. . . that went as well as any Hargreeves family function," spoke Allison.

Klaus sighed as he was spread out on the floor. "I feel so violated. I need an herbal bath. You had no right to possess me," pointing to Ben.

"Oh, possession is a strong word. I'd like to say "borrowed you." Temporarily," Ben said. Klaus groaned some more.

"Congratulations," Allison turned to Luther.

"For what?" he asked.

"I think that's the first time you've ever stood up to Dad."

"Hmm," hummed Luther.

"Are you okay?" asked Vanya to Diego.

"So much for having my back in there," he spoke with his head down. "Team Zero, my ass."

The elevator dinged and the doors opened to the second floor. They all started to pile out and Cutie stayed behind and started to lick Klaus's cheek.

"Klaus," Luther sighed heavily and moved towards him. He groaned as he grabbed Klaus by the leg and started to drag him out of the elevator.

"Just leave me," whimpered him. "Just leave me." Cutie followed behind and hopped out.

•••••

"Thanks for dropping me off here, Five," Elli thanked the small boy.

Elli walked out of the dinner place and remembered she didn't have anyone to take her home. So now, sitting on a bench beside the two pull-front doors, she waited for a bit for Five to come out so she could ask him.

Elli was exhausted to say the least. She couldn't stop dozing off and Mace had to bump her awake time to time. He could see the bags under her eyes and watched as her head kept leaning onto the palm of her hand.

After having to wake her a fifth time, Mace let it be. He let her rest, watching as her brown eyes closed and her face turned neutral. The smile that was always there was now gone; now plain and out of sight.

When Five exited the building after his disappointment with Reginald—getting no answers, he heard soft, small snores. He then turned to the right to see Elli asleep on a bench and Cutie was laid beside her.

Five slowly walked towards her as Cutie pulled her head up, sniffing furiously. She placed her two front paws on Elli's thighs and hopped up onto her owner. Five smiled at the rabbit then bumped Elli awake. Elli's head popped up quite quickly and she gave her head a quick shake, now blinking her eyes.

"What're you still doing here? Shouldn't you be at the wicked witch of the west and her accomplice's house?"

Elli rolled then rubbed her eyes. "First of all," she yawned. "it's Bonnie and Mary. Second of all, they aren't evil, they're lesbian." Five rolled his eyes in disagreement.

"You didn't answer my question," he gave an eyebrow raise.

"I don't have anyone to bring me home." Five sighed.

He was at an upmost of a least to doing