defenderofdesmoines | Elliot's Apartment

You know, when Luther came into the apartment and saw blood, he assumed Diego had killed somebody. But then he saw the dead guy was Elliot and knew that wasn't possible. Everybody liked Elliot. He made them jello!

"I can't believe he's dead," Luther said, helping Diego put a sheet over the dead (and mangled, ugh) body.

Diego	"He was a good guy," Diego said, frowning. "Deserved better than this."
Annie	Annie was still leaning against the balcony, giving Elliot's body a wide berth. She'd been quietly praying for a fair amount of the time between the discovery of his body and Luther's arrival, but she was also studying the message written on the floor below. "I don't think this has to do with Elliot," she offered softly, glancing up. "We must be getting close to something." Maybe Kennedy. Maybe another, less friendly former coworker of Five's, or something. Maybe something completely new!
Diego	Diego nodded in agreement. "Smells like the Feds." He had absolutely no evidence to back this up, for the record.
Luther	"What? Are you out of your mind?" Luther asked. Then realized that was a valid question since the dude had just been in a mental institution. "Diego, if this were the federal government, they would take him somewhere and question him. They wouldn't...do this," he said, gesturing to Elliot's sheet-covered body. "No, this is the work of a psychopath."
Annie	"I don't think the government would write on the floor like this," Annie pointed out apologetically, shrugging as she looked back downstairs. "Doesn't mean it's not related, though." She tilted her head, reading the unfamiliar words again. "Maybe we're saying it wrong. It could be, like, one long word. Ogaforoga." It sounded like a magic spell when she said it like that. "Or two words. Oga Foroga?"
Diego	"Is that a name?" Diego asked.
Luther	"Could be," Luther said. "I'll look her up." Wow, they were using a phone book again. Ancient technology. Luther flipped through the pages of the Dallas phone book for a couple moments before getting to the F's. "Holy shit. I found her. Olga Foroga." Not what was written on the floor, guys.
Annie	Well. That seemed really easy. "That must be her," Annie decided. Maybe the L was silent? (...so she hadn't written it? Was that how that worked, at all?) "Oh my God, we should definitely call her." What could go wrong?
Luther	"On it." Luther went over to Elliot's (RIP) phone, dialing the number he had come up with. "Okay...it's ringing. Uh, hello, Olga?" Luther put a hand over the receiver and looked over at Annie and Diego. "It's her. She sounds old. What should I say?" Then, hearing a confused old lady on the other end of the line, went back to speaking. "Excuse me, ma'am, um I was wondering---what? My name? Luther Hargreeves."
Annie	"Tell her we know everything!" Annie suggested, super helpfully. Look, she was kind of, like, swept up in the vengeance thing here. (Also they literally knew nothing, actually. No things.)
Diego	Diego grabbed the phone out of Luther's hand, making a noise of disgust of how badly Luther was handling this. God, was this the first time you threatened someone over the phone, dude? "You killed one of ours, Olga, now we're coming after you," Diego gritted out. "You will be dead by nightfall." Now that's how you threatened an old woman.
Five	Five honestly despaired in all of you. Often. "Hey, it's Oga For Oga, idiots," Five said, still definitely covered in blood. Because he was in a hurry, okay? "Swedish for 'an eye for an eye'. It means the Swedes killed Elliot."
Diego	... ... Diego cleared his throat. "Wrong number, have a lovely day." Let's never speak of this again.
Luther	"We would have gotten there," Luther assured Diego and Annie. "Eventually." Just sometime after tormenting an old woman.
Diego	"You, uh, have a lot of blood on you." Just in case you hadn't noticed, Five.
Annie	"Why do you even know Swedish?" Annie wondered with a vague accusation in her voice. You were the weird one here, Five. And also the lady whose name sounded weirdly like a Swedish threat. It was her fault, too.
Five	If you thought you could get a straight answer out of him, you'd be wrong, Annie. "I found a way to get us home." Ignoring the blood comment too.
Luther	"What?" Things you started the conversation with, Five! "How?"
Five	He had to stop you idiots from harassing a random woman first! "It's irrelevant, but I made a deal to get back to our timeline." Via murder.
Diego	This all sounded ridiculously suspicious. You knew that, right, Five? "What about doomsday?" Didn't seem like there was much of a point in going back if there was nothing to go back to. Though he supposed they could all go back to Fandom. ...man, the guest room was going to be crowded.
Five	Five could probably sneak some of them into the dorms too. That wouldn't be weird at all. "Won't happen."
Annie	They had a couch, too! And at least a couple of really welcoming friends. (God, Summer would probably actually volunteer to put the likes of Klaus up on her couch.) "Both of them?" Annie checked. "Both doomsdays?"
Five	Just as long as no one touched the murder board. He put a lot of work into that. "Everything will be back to normal. Alright?" Five snapped. "Now, no more questions. We gotta go. We have to find the others, alright? Luther, you get Allison. Annie and Diego, Klaus. I'll get Vanya. Now we'll meet back in the arrival alley in..." He looked at a nearby clock. "77 minutes."
Diego	"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on," Diego said. "You show up drenched in blood, and expect us to believe everything's gonna go back to normal if we go home now?" Things didn't work like that for them!
Five	No, no. That was true. And totally why this was a bad idea, but it was all Five had. "Look, Elliot just got killed because of us."
Diego	"What about Dad? What about JFK?" Oh, did you think you'd get out of this conversation without a Kennedy mention? You fool.
Five	GODDAMN IT. "Diego, we have the chance to go home and make things right. We are taking it. If you don't do this, I'll kill you myself." Okay, that was a bit extreme. But he would find another tranq gun.
Diego	"I'd like to see you try." Guys, not the time. "But, fine, we'll go get Klaus." They could pull this off in an hour, right? Right.

Diego	An hour and a half to wrangle six people to one alley was asking a lot, but they were adults. They were superhero adults, even. They could pull this off. But even Diego had to slow down to appreciate Klaus' mansion. There was a pool. "God, I should have started a cult."
Annie	"I'd totally be in your cult." God, Annie, you basically already were. "But like, seriously, look at this landscaping. This place is gorgeous." Note to self: she should spend some of her Seven millions on, like, a house with a yard, maybe.
Diego	"It's seriously unfair. There he is." Ugh, and he was being hit on by a girl calling him 'Daddy'. He shouldn't be surprised Klaus was the gross kind of cult leader, but... "Hey, Daddy, you got a sec?"
Ben	Ben's face (or, well, Klaus' face being controlled by Ben), lit up. "Diego!" He gave Annie a similar goofy grin. "Annie!"
Annie	"Hey, buddy." Annie was totally taking the talking-to-kids approach here because she figured Klaus had gotten into something fun while unsupervised, yes. "We've gotta go, okay?" She also waved at his friend. Not her fault that they needed to get going.
Diego	Yeah, he definitely looked off. More off than usual. Diego grabbed Klaus' arm, starting to drag him away from the weird proto-hippie chick. "You need to come with us."
Ben	Look, it just felt great to have a body to be dragged along in. "Where are we going?"
Annie	"Five figured out how to get home," Annie explained, flanking Klaus' other side just in case he needed dual dragging action. "But we need to hustle." He did not seem to be in a hustling mood. Like, Klaus was never in a hustling mood, as far as Annie could tell, but it did seem...worse? Different, at least.
Ben	No, Ben was not in a hustling move at all. He had, quite literally, stopped and smelled the flowers about five minutes ago. "It's so good to talk to you again, Diego." And it was the first time he got to talk to Annie at all! "Hey, hey, do you hear me?"
Diego	Diego stopped (which they so didn't have time for), and eyed his brother. "Are you high, Klaus?"
Ben	Ah, there was the problem. "No, no, I'm not Klaus," he said, looking between Diego and Annie. "I'm Ben!" There. That explained everything.
Annie	It sort of did, actually. Or at least, it explained why he seemed so different. "...what?" Annie asked. "Nuh uh." Great comeback.
Diego	"Oh he's definitely high," Diego said. "We don't have time for this."
Ben	"I can prove it!" Ben insisted. "Ask me something only Ben would know."
Diego	Diego sighed. They really didn't have time for this, but he could tell that Annie bought it a little bit. So he'd indulge his dumbass brother for a second. "Okay. When we were little, what did you reprogram Allison's Teddy Ruxpin to say?"
Ben	Ben smiled. Then in a sing-song tone replied, "Luther sniffs Dad's underwear."
Diego	Diego was dumbstruck for a moment. He quickly tried to think of how that could be possible, but then decided he didn't care about how's and pulled Ben into a hug.
Annie	Don't mind Annie and her actual tears over here, guys. This was legitimately moving and kind of beautiful and she also didn't care about the how. Clearly this was part of, like, Klaus' power strengthening, right? Like before, when Diego's life had been saved. "Hi, Ben," she said softly, smiling and trying not to look like she was straight up melting at this display of brotherly love but, you know, totally failing. "Nice to meet you, finally." They had time for this, okay?
Ben	"Finally," Ben said, giving Annie a smile. "Hi, Annie."
Diego	Diego was still looking at Ben in awe. "I don't get it. Klaus said you didn't make it to Dallas." When would they learn to never listen to Klaus?
Ben	"Klaus says a lot of things." A lot of things. Most of them incorrect. "But guess what? I can possess him now and it's freakin' awesome." Klaus probably thought it was less awesome.
Annie	"Honestly, that's really useful to us, too," Annie decided, ignoring how Klaus might feel about it. That was a future problem! And Ben was his brother, they could work it out. "'Cause we have to keep moving or we're all going to be stuck in the 60s forever or something." Which would be kind of cool, but Annie would miss a lot of modern things. Her phone, mostly. Google had already proven to be really necessary to her daily function in the world.
Ben	"What about Destiny's Children?" Ben asked. "We can't just leave them. Klaus should be the one to tell them--"
Diego	"No, no," Diego said. "You stay in this body. We need someone responsible behind the wheel, okay?"
Ben	"Okay, but I need like ten minutes," Ben said, holding up his hands. "Just ten minutes."
Diego	If it had actually been Klaus speaking Diego would have had an easier time saying no. But since it was Ben... "Fine. Ten minutes." Diego then realized there was something he should do. "Actually--that works out. Meet in the alley behind Elliot's in 30 minutes, okay?" He turned to Annie. "You stay with him in case Klaus tries to get out. We need to be in that alley. I'm gonna go make sure Elliot gets the burial he deserves."
Annie	"Oh, I love you for that," Annie said, smiling softly. "Got it. I'll make sure whoever's in there makes it to the alley, no matter what." She looked to Ben. "Ten minutes or I'm carrying you out of here. Cool?" She had a guess what the ten minutes were for. Call it a hunch.
Diego	"I love you too," Diego said with a grin. He placed a hand on Ben's shoulder. "Good to see you, brother." Then he went off in search of a shovel.
Ben	"Okay, ten minutes, come on," Ben said to Annie, starting to hurry to where a group of followers were gathered. Then he made this weird jerking motion. Like he was dry heaving or something. "Oh no."
Annie	"Well, shit, that doesn't look good," Annie offered helpfully, reaching over to grab his arm for stability. "Ben, stay in there. Klaus! Quit fighting him!" She didn't know if Klaus could hear her, but if he could, she would sure love it if he just settled down. For goodness' sake, how much shit had he put Ben through in the last decade and a half? He could chill for a bit.
Ben	It certainly didn't help that they were soon swarmed by Klaus' followers, all so very excited their prophet was there. "Uh, I need to go on a vision quest," Ben said, starting to sweat a little now. "Be back in a few years. Maybe." "Who will bless the pool waters?" A follower asked. "You can do it. You can do everything from now on," Ben said quickly. "Bless the water, bless the air, bless the sex swing for all I care." He leaned some of his weight against Annie. "This is bad, this is really bad."
Annie	"Hey, you guys are totally in charge now, okay?" Annie told the followers, getting her arm around Ben to bodily start pulling him along, and if these people didn't want a lesson how well pointy elbows and super-strength went together, they'd better clear on out. "This is all a part of faith. Prophets don't stick around forever -- they're just here to guide the way. Now it's up to you to practice what you've learned." Good thing Annie didn't really believe in Hell anymore, since she was pretty sure that's where she'd go for her involvement in this.
Ben	"What she said," Ben said, almost doubling over when Klaus made a real effort to take control. "We have to go now." "Prophet, wait!" a man called. "Any last words of wisdom before you go?" Ben stood up a little straighter, trying to think of something to say. What would Klaus do? Klaus would plagiarize a boy band from the late 1990's, of course. "...oh my god we're back again? Brothers, sisters, everybody sing! We're gonna bring the flavor, we're gonna show you how." He turned to Annie. "Run, go, we need to run."
Annie	"Oh my God, that's gonna be stuck in my head for like, the rest of the day. Nice work." Which was a trick and a half, considering around here it'd been like, all Sam Cooke, all the time. But she didn't need to be told twice, and Annie grabbed Ben by the hand to pull him along as she took off at a brisk clip back to where she remembered the entrance to this whole weird compound being.