apocalypsehow | Not Quite Hoth, But Close Enough

Yeah, where Five and Lila appeared after their little hate filled trust exercise in a closet was bitterly cold and swirling with snow all around them.'

Because of course it was.

"Brilliant idea, Lila!" he snapped. "Welcome to the Ice Age."

Lila	Yes, this was definitely less than ideal. At least she'd opted to not do this in a towel out of pure spite. That was a good choice. "Shut up," she snapped, looking at something past Five. "And look." They both knew that building well enough to recognize it, even in its current state of disrepair, didn't they?
Five	Five followed her gaze, letting out a disconcerted noise once he caught sight of the remains of the campus that had been both their place of employment. "The Commission. Shit." It was covered in snow and half collapsed in on itself. Which, you know, explained some stuff with the briefcases.
Lila	Lila's home for the majority of her life, too. No big deal. They made their way over -- what other choice did they have at the moment? -- and ducked in, mindful of the snow. "Holy shit. I was just here," Lila mused, worried. "How long was I bloody gone?" Always an interesting question in their line of work.
Five	"Seems the grandfather paradox is affecting everything," Five said, carefully picking his way through the collapsed areas along with her. "Even places out of time." Which was great. Just greeeeat.
Lila	"Is that possible?" Lila asked, as though refuting the possibility of such a thing would actually change, you know, the reality of the situation.
Five	"I stopped tracking what was possible a long time ago." It was better for his sanity. "We better get moving. I'll check the Infinite Switchboard." Look at him sharing that information! It was almost teamwork adjacent!
Lila	"I'll check Herb's office," Lila decided, already moving in that direction. "Little cockroach would survive anything. Bye!" Look at that. Not just teamwork, but friendly teamwork!
Five	"See ya," Five said idly, heading in the direction of the Switchboard.
Lila	"Miss you." Now she was just fucking with him a little.
Five	"That's weird," Five informed her, making a face like he'd probably make with Klaus.
Lila	Lila acted like she had not heard that part, and idly made her way down the hall towards Herb's office. There might have been a bit of skipping, but that also might have been attributable to her avoiding the debris littering the ground.
Five	Yeah, definite shades of Klaus there. The Infinite Switchboard was, aside from the dim lighting and snow gusting in from a crack in the window, just how Five remembered it. Which was why it didn't take too much more than a little fiddling to get the very last message from Herb playing on a fuzzy screen.
Herb	"There's been a rip in the space-time continuum. It's swallowing everything. Oh my sweet Dot, Iris, Josh from accounting, they're all gone. I've tried everything. I don't know what else to do. The timeline is collapsing." There were screams in the background of the footage as a light started to glow somewhere off camera. And then, "This is the end!" And then Herb too was wiped out of existence.
Lila	"I could kill for some scrambled eggs right now," Lila remarked, wandering back in. So that was a no on finding anything in Herb's office, Five. Hope you had something good.
Five	"This is bigger than the timeline, Lila," Five said rather than to respond to the need for eggs. Especially in this economy.
Lila	"What's bigger than the timeline?" Avian flu? It did seem like it.
Five	Avian flu was no joke, Lila! "The entire universe," Five explained, looking around the place. "The missing dogs, the people... it's the opposite of the big bang. Instead of the universe expanding, it's collapsing in on itself." And they miiiight have caused it.
Lila	"Like a prolapsing rectum," Lila contributed, concerned in spite of her incredibly apt simile.
Five	"...that's a weird analogy, but yeah," Five replied, just going with it.
Lila	"Well -- here, then," Lila suggested, taking a brief look around and laying sharp eyes on a rather large book that they both, of course, knew well. She hefted it up so Five could get a look, too. "This might give us some answers?"
Five	"The Master Handbook," Five said, taking the book from her. This was possibly the best thing they could have found for that.
Lila	"The one and only," Lila agreed, pretty proud of herself for finding that completely randomly. Good job, Lila.
Five	Five started flipping through the pages, searching for procedure in case of, well, the end of times. Or the Grandfather Paradox. Possibly both. "Okay, here we are," he said, stopping to read it out loud for her. "Protocol: In the unlikely case of the grandfather paradox, the founder and any essential personnel should--"
Lila	"-- be immediately remanded to the operations bunker," Lila continued, knowing this bit by heart and even crossing over to point to the line in the book. Of course, that begged a different question.
Five	"The Founder," Five repeated like this was news to him. Because it was, in fact, news to him.
Lila	"What founder?" Lila wondered. It had honestly never even occurred to her to think about who the Commission's founder might be
Five	If anyone had an answer for them, it'd be there at least. "We need to find that bunker. ASAP."

Five	"This is just a bunch of bureaucratic bullshit," Five muttered, looking through the handbook as they walked through the rubble to find the fabled Operations Bunker. "There's no clear directive in here about crisis management." Maybe because this whole thing shouldn't have been possible, but that was some quitter talk there. "You know, Lila, I shouldn't even be here. I was out. I was done, and yet here I am, swept back into the chaos. Why can't I just escape this hellhole?"
Lila	"Because you love it," Lila pointed out, fairly sure she had that in one. She didn't know what she'd do with herself if she had the opportunity to live a normal life. Probably end up in jail, really.
Five	Five made a disgruntled noise as he scratched at the back of his neck. They were picking their way through frozen rooms of the Commission to find this damn bunker like it was a wild goose hunt. He turned around to counter that statement and... farted instead. "My bad." Clearly nothing was wrong here. Nothing at all.
Lila	Now, if Lila hadn't warmed so instantly to her subject, she would have had a comment there. Better still, she might have remembered her training, and noticed the scratching, too. But she didn't. "Face it, Five, apocalypse problems are the only thing that get your heart pumping," she replied, certain she had him pegged.
Five	They were talking about deep, emotional things and as such, it was easy to ignore the signs! "I don't know why people keep saying that," Five said, leading them through a nearly blocked off by rubble doorway. "I don't actually like chaos. I don't want disorder. I... I want retirement." And to stop being so itchy.
Lila	"Yeah, right. A normal life with groceries and taxes? You'd die of boredom," Lila assured him, scoffing. What, get married to a mannequin and settle down in a little house somewhere with two-point-five teleporting, half-plastic children? Give her a break, Five.
Five	He managed a good day of retirement there! "Yeah, well, you're not exactly cut out for domestic bliss either," Five shot back. Two psychotic peas in a pod, these two.
Lila	"'Course I'm bloody not, thank god," Lila replied easily, and you know, while they were opening up and all, maybe Five would like some constructive criticism? "I mean, maybe it's a tone thing? Maybe you can work on the way you speak. It's very irritating." Pots, kettles. "I'm just saying it's something you can work on, you know? For the future."
Five	Five tugged at his collar, loosening his tie a little bit as he smirked at a spot further on ahead, not at all addressing her super constructive criticism there.
Lila	Five, she was imparting wisdom here. "What are you smiling at, you little pisspot?" That was usually what she'd classify as a bad sign, his smile.
Five	"Because of that," he said, pointing at a doorway up ahead with a little sign above it proclaiming it the 'Operations Bunker'.
Lila	"Well, you could have started with that," Lila grumbled once she'd read the sign. Within the bunker, there was another, much heavier-duty door, with a scanner like the ones Lila had been using since she was four years old. Though, this time, when she leaned in to let it scan her features, an alarm started sounding. Shit. "Well, we're screwed." And to make matters worse, her travel companion had abruptly taken a turn for the apparently-rashy and hot and gassy, which she could have done without. "Jesus, you're sweating like a dodgy shrimp on ice, what's wrong?"
Five	Five paused, mid-scratch and his expression was one of dawning realization. Followed by a fart, of course, as he stepped forward to have his features scanned to the sound of no alarms. In fact, the door unlocked as they were granted access.
Lila	"Oh. Guess you're essential personnel," Lila observed. Don't mind her feeling a little miffed that she was, apparently, not essential herself.
Five	Oh, she'd change her mind once they slipped into the bunker that looked like if the Apple Store had a baby with the 60's. And there, in the middle of it all, what looked like an iron lung. "That's him, huh," Five muttered, already feeling better the moment he was in the room. Weirdly. "The founder."
Lila	How impressive. "Looks like tinned beef. I was expecting more of a man and less...can," Lila noted. Say what you would about the woman who raised her -- The Handler would have had a much more stylish setup for this bunker. Way more Victoriana, way less Apple Store.
Five	Wait, wait, wait... "It can't be," Five said, putting together the math in his head now that he could think properly.
Lila	"What's wrong?" And again, if Lila had been thinking a little harder about Five and his symptoms, and had noticed that they'd mostly stopped, she probably would have been able to reach this conclusion on her own.
Five	"It's me." He recognized that grizzled old face from having it for a good part of his life before now.
Lila	Well. What was she supposed to do with that information besides burst out laughing? Even if you weren't Lila, and you didn't have a particularly nihilistically-warped sense of humor -- that was honestly hilarious. "No way. This whole time you've been complaining about the Commission, and you're the one that founded it," she managed between giggles, clapping her hands together. "Classic."
Five	Rude! He was his own man! Maybe literally here. "If I did, I have no memory of it," Five said like time travel wasn't a big mindfuck or something.
Lila	Yeah, no, that was practically positive evidence for time-travelers! "So here I was, thinking you were a maverick -- but you're a company man down to the bone," Lila continued. "I mean you -- you literally cannot breathe without this place!" Also, everything was officially your fault now, Five. Everything! All of it!
Five	"Something's not right," Five insisted, not at all enjoying how much she was enjoying this. "I don't have paradox psychosis. I could feel it outside, but in here it's nothing."
Old Man Five	Which was, of course, when his elder(?)--alternate self seemed to wake, sucking in air with the assistance of the iron lung. "Never were too bright, were we?" he rasped. "The operations bunker is paradox-proof. I constructed it as a panic room in case of a collapse of the time continuum. In this room, all permutations of yourself can exist." That made sense, right? "You must be here because of a kugelblitz."
Lila	"Is that like a cheese blintz?" Okay, everyone, Lila officially needed a snack. (Though didn't it sound good? Maybe something with a noodle.)
Five	Next time Five was just going to carry around trail mix or something! "It's German for 'ball of lightning,'" Five replied. "It's an extra kinky kind of black hole."
Lila	For all that she was starving, Lila was still a pretty smart cookie. (Mmm, cookies.) "The kind that can suck up entire timelines," Lila supplied, making the leap there easily.
Old Man Five	"Bingo," the older Five said simply.
Five	Helpful, Five was never. "So how do we fix it?" he asked... himself.
Old Man Five	Five laughed, but it quickly turned into a wheeze a the machine set his breathing back on track. "You don't."
Five	"If you created all of this, then you must have created a solution," Five insisted.
Old Man Five	"All that will be left is oblivion." Because why waste a chance to be cryptic and unhelpful, even at this point.
Lila	"Oblivion?" Lila asked, leaning against the tube with a wrinkled-nosed, skeptical expression. "What do you mean?"
Old Man Five	Her leaning pressed onto something on the control panel, causing the end of the tube to open and the bed he was on to fall, sending the old, diaper-clad version of Five spilling out onto the floor. Where it became very clear that Some Shit Happened, judging from the lack of an arm at the elbow and one hell of a tattoo on his chest. "This is what you have coming," he gasped.
Five	Yes, yes. Very ominous and foreboding. But right now? Five was on a mission. He grabbed his counterpart to shake him a little bit. "Listen to me, you ass. I just spent the last 2 years running around, saving the world from apocalypses, only to keep trying to save the world," Five hissed. "Now I am stuck in the pubescent body, my hormones are raging, and all I want to do is go out and buy a 1970s Corvette Stingray." It was bad, y'all.
Lila	"Take it easy on him, Five," Lila chided, though that was confusing as they were both Five. Also, could you even drive stick, you little twerp?
Five	"Lila, this is between me and myself, so stay out of it," Five said like that was a normal thing to say. It was not. "Now this kugelblitz. It is not some tiny leak that we can simply fix by patching a couple of pinholes. It is a giant trash compactor which is grinding up the universe and consuming it whole. So tell me how you stop it!"
Old Man Five	Hey, remember that thing that you do to all your siblings where you disappear to get the last word, Five? "Whatever you do," Five gasped like a fish out of water. "Don't save the world." He was doing that thing to himself, but by dying and not teleporting away.
Five	"What do you mean by don't save--" The machine that had clearly been keeping his counterpart alive went from a frantic beeping to a long, solid noise as he flatlined. "Five! How do I fix this?!"
Lila	Whelp. That was a fun lead for all of a minute, there. Lila still went to the formality of checking for a pulse, reaching for his remaining wrist. "He's dead, Five."
Five	He couldn't even depend on himself! "Can I have the room?" Five asked, trying to compose himself here and not, you know, kick his own corpse.
Lila	"...I don't think I should leave you two alone." Ah, there you were, Lila's Instincts. About time you showed up to this party.
Five	"Lila, I need the room,." Five said after taking another deep breath and composing himself into something less full of rage and more... well, presenting as sad. Sadness adjacent.
Lila	Oh, no, Five. Were you having...emotions? Emotions about meeting your dead, old self? Lila wanted no part of that, thank you. And if you must know, she felt sort of bad for him, which was a fact she did not hide all that well as she moved to the door and gave him the room as he had asked.
Five	Sucker! Five let out an annoyed sigh as he looked at his older counterpart for a moment longer, inspecting the tattoo. Then, he was pulling out a knife and skinning himself to keep it. Seemed important. Also, it wasn't weird. Shut up.