Word count: 2597

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐋𝐄𝐑 𝐖𝐇𝐈𝐏𝐏𝐄𝐃 out a red cloth from her pocket and raised it, the fabric blowing in the wind as her sinister smile grew. She dropped it, and immediately, the Commission workers let out battle cries as they ran forward and began to shoot at them.

Valerie grabbed onto the collars of Five and Diego, who had already broken out into a run, and sped them as far as she could until they reached a small tractor that was about twenty feet away from the house.

She let go of them, panting heavily as the three of them dropped to the ground, leaning back against the tractor as bullets flew past them.

"Sonic, I think I'm gonna puke," Diego groaned as he clutched onto his stomach, shaking his head.

"Can you run us to the house?" Five questioned, glancing under the tractor to see the rapidly approaching feet.

Valerie, who was holding a hand over her chest and breathing heavily, murmured, "Haven't . . . eaten . . ."

"Shit!" Five searched through the pockets of his blazer before digging deep into the pockets of his pants. His eyes widened as his hands came up with nothing, and he groaned. "The bars are gone—I didn't get to make any new ones, because Elliott . . ."

She sighed, shaking her head after taking a deep breath. "I still have a little energy left, I can run us there, just . . . give me a second."

"No, don't," Five immediately answered. "I don't want you to get hurt,"

"Can't you blink us there?" Diego asked hurriedly, glancing back behind the tractor before looking towards Five with urgency.

Five grabbed onto both of them, furrowing his eyebrows and scrunching his face in concentration but nothing happened. "Shit. I'm too tired."

"You guys go to the house," Diego ordered, getting to his feet but remaining slightly crouched. "I'll take care of them."

Valerie was immediately against the idea as she shook her head and exclaimed, "Diego, don't—"

"Go!"

Five grabbed onto Valerie's hand and brought her to her feet before pulling her in the direction of the house.

The two of them sprinted as fast as they could, Valerie tripping over her own feet a few times. She could feel her condition begin to worsen, and she let out a soft groan as they reached the porch, hearing the bullets hit everything but them, somehow.

Five glanced back at the attackers before opening the glass door and pulling Valerie through. He pushed her under the wooden table before going under himself, wrapping his arms around her as he squeezed his eyes shut.

Bullets burst through the window, glass shattering as light fixtures exploded and furniture became destroyed. The sound was deafening, and Valerie lifted her hands to her ears to try and muffle the sound.

Suddenly, the bullets stopped, and the sound of shooting halted. There was only silence, and with a bit of hope, the two of them crawled out from under the table, glancing at each other before getting to their feet.

"Are you okay?" Five asked softly, his eyes worriedly searching her face.

"I'm fine," she reassured him before swallowing. "I haven't run that much today, so it shouldn't be as bad as last time."

"Try not to run as much then," he murmured as they tentatively approached the window.

They peered out the glassless window to see that all of the Commission workers were all laying on the ground, motionless, because of Vanya, who looked as she did at the Icarus Theatre, and was now floating in the air.

Suddenly, they saw another figure float up to Vanya's level, and Valerie let out a small gasp.

Lila, her eyes white and her skin pale, outstretched her arms, and blue energy sucked into her chest as she absorbed it.

Realizing that she was about to release it, Five grabbed Valerie's hand and pulled her backwards, his eyes wide as he muttered, "Shit, shit."

He pulled her back under the table, wrapping his arms around her once more. They felt the wave of energy shake the house, but nothing broke this time, luckily.

"C'mon," Five whispered, beckoning for her to follow as he climbed out and got to his feet.

She followed, dusting off her uniform as she stood up, then stumbling forward and leaning her hands onto the table as she took a short gasp of breath.

"Val, are you—"

Five was cut off as something—or rather, someone—fell through the ceiling, the wood crashing down around them as they dropped to the ground with a loud thud.

"Luther, are you all right?" Five asked rushedly as the two walked over to him, his eyes flickering over the man who was covered in rubble and dust.

Luther groaned, "Oh, I think I swallowed my tongue."

Five rolled his eyes, straightening up as he discerned that Luther was fine (ish). "Luther, if you swallowed your tongue, you wouldn't be talking, you big moron."

"Five, now is not the time to be cute," Valerie muttered, reaching a hand out and attempting to help Luther get to his feet.

"I'm not trying to," Five grumbled as he grabbed onto Luther's other arm and pulled him up.

"What happened?" Luther rasped as he steadied himself, his gaze shifting between the two.

Valerie glanced back at the door before answering, "She must've redirected Vanya's energy wave."

"Yeah, I know, but how?" he questioned.

Suddenly, Five, who had been looking up, shouted, "Watch out!" and pushed both of them to the side.

Valerie and Luther jumped back as a pile of bricks crumbled off of the top of the fireplace and landed on top of Five, concealing them from his view.

"Five!" Valerie cried out, dropping to her knees and beginning to dig through the bricks as Luther did the same.

Suddenly, Lila blinked into the room, causing both of them to jump to their feet and turn their attention toward her.

"Goddammit," Valerie sighed, glancing down at the bricks, where a bit of Five's uniform was peeking through.

"What are you?" Luther growled, his eyes narrowed as he took a step in front of Valerie, concealing her from the attacker's view.

Lila walked towards him, her eyebrows raised as she answered, "Someone who wants to kill your brother."

"Well, that's understandable, Diego fucking sucks." Valerie shrugged, receiving a nod of agreement from Luther.

"Yeah, I was talking about Five," Lila corrected as she stood a few steps away from Luther.

Valerie frowned before shrugging once more. "Yeah, he sucks too."

"But, unfortunately," Luther continued off of her, "they're family, so you're shit out of luck."

He swung his fist at her, but Lila raised a hand and caught his fist with ease. He trembled and scrunched his face as he tried his hardest to push his fist towards her, but to no avail.

"How is this possible?" he grunted, trying to punch her again but failing.

She gave him a smirk. "Gotta believe in yourself, big boy."

She then grabbed onto his wrist and threw him out the front of the house, a large opening being smashed into creation as Luther landed outside.

After glimpsing out the hole that brought forth more light into the room, Lila turned her attention to Valerie as she brushed off her pants. "Shame. I liked you."

"Really?" Valerie questioned as she scrunched her face. "Did not get those vibes."

Lila smirked.

Was Valerie scared that she would get her powers replicated and be beaten up by Lila? No, definitely not. She knew that Lila would be able to match her speed, sure, but she wasn't worried in the least.

'Why?' you may ask.

Well . . .

Lila rolled her shoulders back, seeming a little unnerved by the fact that Valerie had folded her arms and was waiting patiently, but she didn't let that hold her back.

She sped towards Valerie, but stopped short after barely a second, her hand reaching her head and her skin becoming a little pale. Her stare was murderous as she looked toward Valerie, and her breathing shortened.

"What the hell?"

"Yeah, speed isn't really a power you can really just pick up and go with, sorry." Valerie grinned, receiving a glare from the other girl.

"I'll manage."

"Oh, will you?" Valerie sped to the side as Lila tried to speed towards her again, but the other woman stopped short, her hands on her knees as she panted. "Have trouble breathing? Hm. You forgot to copy my enhanced lung capacity."

"What?" Lila furrowed her eyebrows as she straightened up.

"Mhm." Valerie shrugged. "While the others' powers are a little . . . simple . . . Mine has layers."

"Well, I know now." Lila's smirk was back as she tried to speed towards her again.

Valerie sped towards the opposite side of the room, sitting on the counter as she watched Lila stumble and gag. "Yeah, another thing. Your body doesn't have the ability to deal with those speeds, you don't have the same immunity as I do. And you haven't eaten enough to dispense the energy needed, anyway. So, even if I told you the abilities you need to copy" —Valerie's eyes glinted with amusement— "you wouldn't be able to use them. You'd . . . die in a second."

"Whatever," Lila spat as she glared at her. "I don't need your powers to kill you."

With fury, Lila marched over to Valerie, unsheathing a knife from the pocket of her pants. She raised it, about to put it into use before Valerie sped over to the other side of the room again and grinned.

"Don't you?"

"Goddammit." Lila redirected her path and began to charge toward Valerie, who ran to the other side of the room again.

The chase carried on for a couple of minutes, and Valerie felt worry growing inside of her, for a few reasons.

One, Five still hadn't gotten out of the pile of bricks. That worried her most. She was sure he was fine, but . . .

Two, she knew she was growing tired and was feeling sicker and sicker. She really needed another one of those bars.

Three, she had no plan. She wasn't going to kill Lila, she found herself barely able to consider that option. But, still, she had no clue what she was going to do other than tease her.

"Stay still, dammit!" Lila shouted, her eyes flickering around the room as Valerie sped.

"Okay!" Valerie stopped running, then standing a few feet away from Lila as she grinned. She tried to keep her panting to a minimum, hiding it from Lila as she forced a confident smile on her face.

Out of rage, Lila threw the knife toward her, which she then sped out of the way. The knife stuck itself into the wall behind her as Valerie stumbled behind the kitchen counter, and she cursed, knowing that she had reached her limit.

It seemed that that knowledge had dawned upon Lila as her smirk grew. "C'mon, little one. Let's have fun."

Valerie groaned silently to herself as Lila came up towards her, and she began to block every punch and kick that was sent her way.

It wasn't long until Lila summoned Luther's super strength and threw her out the other side of the front of the house, and Valerie felt pain erupt through her body as she smashed through the wood.

She groaned as she landed in a bed of snow, now about fifteen feet away from the house. She was about to get back up and run in there before she heard a cry.

"Help!"

"Diego!" She jumped to her feet, ignoring every urge to stop and throw up as she ran as fast as she could, which at the moment, was about a mile per hour.

She found him lying stomach-down near the barn, the small tractor flipped over and resting on top of his leg as he groaned in pain.

The others reached him at the same time she did, and they all began to attempt to help Diego get out.

"What took you so long?" Diego complained.

"Well, we're here now." Luther rolled his eyes as he grabbed onto the front wheels of the tractor and began to push it up as Allison and Valerie tried to pull Diego's leg out. "Do you wanna stop complaining?"

"Or we could just leave you here," Klaus suggested as he sat on top of the tractor, being no help (although, that wasn't too much of a surprise).

"What he said," Allison agreed as she tried to yank his leg.

Vanya glanced back nervously at the barn before muttering, "Does everything in this family have to be a discussion?

Luther groaned as he pushed the tractor up, successfully lifting it off of the ground and releasing Diego's leg.

"Go, go, go, go!" Allison exclaimed as Diego quickly crawled out.

"Are you out?" Luther grunted as he strained as he carried the weight of the tractor.

"Yeah!"

Luther let out a small groan as he dropped the tractor to the ground, and Diego got to his feet.

"Team Zero! Unstoppable!" Diego shouted triumphantly, high-fiving the fist that Luther was giving him.

Allison rolled her eyes at the two, who embarrassingly shook their hands off from the bad exchange. "Okay, has anyone seen Five?"

"Uh . . ." Valerie looked towards the house with a small frown. "Last I saw him, he was covered in bricks. He's probably fine."

"Huh?" Allison's eyes widened, looking over towards the house with alarm.

"By the way," Luther said as he looked towards Diego with raised eyebrows, "your ex-girlfriend can blink like Five."

Allison nodded. "Yeah, that bitch just rumoured me so I couldn't breathe."

"And destroyed, like, half the farm with a shock wave," added Klaus as he turned towards Vanya and shook his head. "So unoriginal."

"She tried to copy my speed too." Valerie shrugged.

"Tried?" echoed Vanya with furrowed eyebrows.

"Yeah, she couldn't handle it." Valerie shrugged again. "My powers are too complicated and her body wasn't ready for it."

"If she can do everything we can . . ." Vanya looked around at the group before continuing, "she might as well just be one of us."

"Yeah," Luther chuckled in agreement before processing her words. His smile dropped. "No. No, there's no way. It can't be."

Everyone's head slowly turned towards Vanya, their eyes wide and their eyebrows knit together tightly.

Allison gave a hesitant shrug as agreed, "It's a reasonable conclusion."

"Eh, but there were only eight of us." Klaus quickly shook his head, looking toward the others for reassurance.

"And you thought there were only seven before I came," Valerie pointed out with raised eyebrows. "Well, six technically because of Vanya, but whatever. Maybe we need to consider that there's even more of us out there."

"Are we surprised?" Allison questioned with a lift of her shoulders. She looked around at them as she reasoned, "Dad never told us the whole truth about anything."

"But she's not our biological sister . . ." Diego's eyes flickered around, a concerned expression settling on his face. "Right?"

Everyone stared at him incredulously for a few moments before Luther cleared his throat and carried on, ignoring Diego's stupid question.

"Okay, so, if she can mirror our powers, that means anything we throw at her, she can match, right?"

"Except for Valerie's," Vanya piped up, gesturing towards the girl.

Everyone's attention turned towards her, a little hope displayed in their otherwise worried eyes.

"Good," Luther said as he nodded, "so Valerie can go and take her down."

"Yes, wonderful plan and all, however" —Valerie gave them an awkward smile— "I maybe perhaps kind of did not eat today because of . . . Well, everything that's happened, and therefore if I run one more mile with my speed, I will pass out."

"Shit." Luther turned back to the group with a sigh and spread his arms out. "So, up to us. What do we do? She's as powerful as any of us."

"Yeah, but she can only mirror one of our powers at a time," Klaus pointed out with a raised finger.

Allison tilted her head, her nose scrunching. "You sure about that?"