Word count: 1736

𝐀𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐔𝐓𝐄𝐒 passed, the air was filled with more and more chatter as people lined up just beyond the fence for the parade. Adult Five had hooked a small radio onto the top of the fence, listening as the radio host described the events.

Valerie, Teen Five, and Luther stood a few feet behind Adult Five, watching as he prepared the gun that he had been keeping in the brown briefcase.

Teen Five wasn't doing so hot at the moment. He was sweating excessively, his hair was slightly askew, and he couldn't go one second without scratching some part of his body. He stared straight at the briefcase that was resting behind Adult Five, trembling more and more as time passed.

"Look," he breathed out as his eyes fixated on it. "The briefcase."

"No, don't," Valerie sternly said as she grabbed onto his arm, clutching it tightly. "You won't be able to get there in time."

"Of course I will," he responded immediately, his eyes locked on the briefcase. "This is our only chance."

"Hey, uh, just remind me" —Luther raised his eyebrows— "what was the final stage of paradox psychosis again?"

"Homicidal rage."

"Right." Luther nodded with a small smile. That smile faded as he processed the words. "That's great."

Valerie's grip on the boy's arm tightened as he began to creep forward. "Five, listen to me. I—"

Teen Five shook her hand loose and immediately teleported over to where Adult Five was standing. Only, Adult Five seemed to have realized, and teleported to where Teen Five had been standing.

"Oh . . . shit," Luther breathed out.

"Bad idea, shit-heel." Adult Five pointed the rifle at Teen Five, prepared to shoot.

Luther marched over and snatched the gun away from him. "Stop it! All right? The both of you. Pull it together," he scolded as Teen Five paced around while scratching the back of his neck. "Now, Kennedy is gonna be coming around that corner any minute. Okay? So, everyone, let's just take a deep breath . . ." He demonstrated for them, which they followed. "Now, we're all family here, okay? So can we all just try to get along for a few more minutes?"

Teen Five stared at Luther for a moment before looking over to his adult counterpart. "You want it?"

Adult Five gave him a smile as he challenged, "Go ahead."

Valerie looked at the two Fives and shook her head, already knowing what was going through their heads. "Please don't."

Luther's eyebrows furrowed as he looked at the boy and questioned, "What's that?"

He then found out what that exactly was as Five kicked him in the groin.

"Shit," he groaned as he doubled over, his face screwed up in agony as he clutched the area of pain.

"Mhm, that's what I thought," Valerie sighed as she walked up to the groaning Luther, patting him on the back.

"Now" —Adult Five narrowed his eyes at the boy— "where were we?"

Valerie turned to face the adult, trying to plead, "Oh, come on, don't—"

She was cut off as they began their fight, teleporting here and there, punching each other in the face and kicking at their legs as they appeared. They travelled all over the parking lot, landing next to cars and occasionally on the grass as they fought.

Sure, Valerie could go and stop them, she was most definitely fast enough to do so. But she figured she'd let them get a little hurt first, might as well get all the stupidity out of them.

They appeared on either side of Luther, who was still bent over in pain and kicked him. He let out another groan, and Valerie patted him on the back once more.

"Hey!" Luther shouted suddenly as he slowly straightened. "Guys, stop! I'm getting really sick of this!"

"You think they'll listen to you?" Valerie raised her eyebrows, a chuckle escaping her lips as she shook her head. "Nah."

After a few more minutes, they appeared a few feet away from each other, in front of the other two.

"Getting tired yet?" Adult Five panted.

Teen Five's wild eyes stared back at him. "I can do this all day."

"Clearly," Valerie muttered under her breath, folding her arms as she took in the sweat that glistened down their faces and their shortened breath.

"Guys," Luther sighed, "this has to stop."

"Eat shit, Ape Man!" both of them shouted at the same time.

They charged toward each other, but a strong, blue light came between them as they collided, as a result of their exhaustion. Both of them were thrown back, landing on their backs as they groaned.

Luther rushed up to grab the gun, and he pointed it toward both of them. "Hey! Assholes! I'm done listening to you both. I'm in charge now."

"Ooh, I'm not sure I trust Luther with a gun," Valerie remarked with a wrinkled nose as she leaned against a nearby car.

"Now, Luther!" Adult Five shouted as his eyes glanced over to the boy. "Shoot him!"

"No! Luther, shoot him!" Teen Five yelled while he scrambled to his feet.

"Don't do it, Luther," Valerie warned, her eyes fixated on the man as she watched him nervously switch pointing the end of his gun towards either man.

"Shoot him!"

"No, Luther, shoot him."

"Luther, shoot him!"

"Luther, shoot him."

"Now, Luther!"

And with Adult Five's last command, Luther slowly turned the gun to face Teen Five, whose eyes widened.

"Luther . . ."

"I'm sorry, buddy," Luther murmured, his forehead creased.

Valerie furrowed her eyebrows. She wasn't sure whether Luther was faking it or not, but she wasn't taking that chance.

She sped over to him, grabbing the gun and using the butt of it to slam Adult Five in the face. The man fell to the ground, knocked out as she came to a stop.

"I was gonna do that," Luther muttered, but Valerie ignored him.

"Now!" She turned to Teen Five, whose mouth was now widened into a grin, gesturing over to the grass. "Open the portal!"

"Right." Teen Five faced the grass and screwed his face up in concentration as he clenched his fists.

Soon, a vortex opened, growing wide enough to show them their past-selves rushing into the courtyard to see what was going on.

Valerie and Luther watched as Teen Five panted, clenching his fists even tighter as he focused on the wind that was now blowing past them. He then looked behind him, and his eyes widened.

The other two looked to see that Adult Five had woken up, and was now reaching for the briefcase that was sitting next to Luther's feet.

Luther was quick to react as he whipped around and pointed the gun that he had taken from Valerie at him. "Don't even think about it!"

"Into the vortex you go, asshole!" Teen Five shouted over the noisy winds that had started to brush past them.

"Fine!" Adult Five conceded as he slowly got up, his eyes nervously glancing over to the vortex. "But give me the math. So I don't end up looking like Tiger Beat over here."

"You stand next to the vortex and I'll tell ya. Go!" Teen Five told him. Upon seeing that Adult Five was still a few feet away from the vortex after he approached it, he shouted, "Closer!"

"This is close enough!" Adult Five yelled. "Now give it to me!"

"Just tell him, Five!" Valerie pleaded, anxiously looking over at the vortex.

Teen Five glanced over at her and gave a small nod as he told Adult Five, "It was a typo."

"Typo?" Adult Five echoed, his face scrunched up in confusion.

"We put the decimal in the wrong spot in our proof of the existence of a bound for the number of limit cycles of planar polynomial vector fields of fixed degree. We wrote down five-point-seven. It should be—"

"—zero-point-five-seven," both of them finished.

"Son of a bitch!" Adult Five exclaimed angrily as he bent over. "I knew that didn't look right. All right . . ." he panted, looking between the vortex and Teen Five. "I guess this is it."

"This is it," Five confirmed with a nod. "Go."

Just then, past-Klaus threw the fire extinguisher through the vortex. The object flew through the air and hit Luther in the head, effectively knocking him out.

Now seeing that no one was guarding the briefcase, Adult Five lunged for it at the same time as Teen Five. The two of them grabbed the handle, fighting over it as they pulled.

"Five!" Valerie shouted as she pointed to the vortex. "It's shrinking!"

Luther clambered to his feet and kicked Adult Five backwards. He fell through the vortex, half of the briefcase going with him as the vortex closed.

The other half of the briefcase flew towards the ground, the sliced half landing on the ground. It sizzled as glowing blue flashed from the bottom; it most definitely didn't work anymore.

"We did it!" Luther shouted gleefully with a grin, spreading his arms in celebration.

Five groaned as he turned around, putting his head in his hands as he muttered, "The briefcase, you idiot."

Luther looked down at the smoking briefcase, and realization dawned upon him. That look was soon replaced with one of anger as he looked up to the boy and shouted, "Oh. Hey, you know what? A thank-you for preserving your existence would be nice."

"Hey! I did that!" Valerie exclaimed as she stuck her tongue out at him. "You were gonna shoot him!"

"'A thank-you'," Five scoffed as he shook his head. Hearing the sudden roar of the crowd beyond the fence, his ears perked up and he ran towards the fence. "Guys! Here he comes!"

The other two rushed up on either side of him, gripping the top of the fence as their eyes fixated on the approaching black car.

"Look," Luther breathed out, "there's Dad."

The other two's gaze followed the finger Luther was pointing, leading them to see a man with his back to them who was dressed in black, and holding an open black umbrella over his head. He stood out against the colourful crowd, who were all clapping their hands and waving their small American flags.

"What do we do?" asked Luther breathily.

"Oh, shit," Valerie groaned as her eyes hooked onto the man who was sprinting straight towards Reginald with a look of fury prominent on his face. "Diego."

Hopelessly, they watched as Diego crossed the street and barrelled into the man, knocking him to the ground. Their eyes widened further as they realized that the man was not Reginald, but just some random, elderly man who had been pretending to be him.

Then, gunshots sounded.

The three of them became horrified as the crowd went running and screams consumed the air.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was dead.