888 ✺ Five Hargreeves

TWO: eight

CHAPTER EIGHT: WINONA GRANT

For six years of my life, the academy had always been missing one member. We never knew what our dad had meant when he said we were waiting on Number Eight, but he had always been very sure of himself. Number Eight was brought home on a warm summer night with little to no explanation, dad only ever told us it was how it was meant to be. This was our final missing piece of the puzzle, our Number Eight. We were only six.

Winona Grant had been living with her mom since birth, Jenavive had declined our father's offer to buy her child. She was the only one to live a normal childhood with her birth mother, something all of us secretly craved. When she had arrived to the academy, the others held a strong resentment over her. The envied her short—but crutial years with her mother, they envied her knowledge of how to be a normal child. Hell, at one point in my life, even I have envied her.

At first, she didn't speak to any of us, not even dad. She would flinch around the man, scared of his intentions. She had once told me of the horrors her mother would warn her surrounding our father. We never believed them, but she always did.

By the time we were ten, four years into her stay, she had begun to open up. While she continued to be the shy and reasonable one, she still made an effort to be part of our team. Not to please our father, but to create a bond with us children.

She was a unique being, wielding the power of using the Mystic Arts. Traveling between portals and bending reality had been something she was able to do since the beginning. One day, Reginald even said she could be the link between civilization and new worlds to the multiverse. But we were kids, we believed any tale he told us. Her amazing use of portal control was my personal favorite, it reminded me of our comic, Dr. Strange, he had always been one of my favorites. She even was able to create cool illusions through her practice of the Music Arts, something dad would always have her work on.

Luther had been the last to accept her into the team, of course this was only due to her powers. He always had the tendency to disregard her feelings and only see her for what she could control, a sad trait he gained from our father. Once we got used to being an eight-member team, he accepted her into the family as well. Something she never knew she needed.

Diego thought of the girl as a sister he never asked for. She had qualities about herself that he secretly wished he could gain, but her presence made him irrationally angry. Her ability to stay calm and collected was something he wished he could steal from her, so instead he deemed that trying to understand her thought process would work just as good. Eventually he opened up to the concept of accepting her as a family member.

Alison had always been the one to gossip with Winona. Those two would stay up all night with flashlights as they discussed any and all drama that occurred on academy grounds. Any new detail about their lives would immediately be compromised upon their nightly talk. It hurt to be the only member of the family that was always left out, but it hurt even worse to know that the girls teamed up with one another without me.

Klaus was the first out of the group that the girl had even opened up to. He had been the one who cracked her hard shell with his lame jokes and snide remarks. When he heard her release a small chuckle at his words, he would only use it as motivation to continue. Her laugh had been the first thing we ever heard from her, much to Klause's pleasure. The two seemed to instantly click over their weird humor and strange ambitions.

Five was pretty close with Winona as well. They always were paired together for training, due to their similar style of powers. Dad always hoped that one day the two would be able to team up with one another and use their powers for something bigger than the two of them, but he never gave more information than that. The night he went missing she never felt the same. She lost her partner and the only person who knew her limits better than herself.

Ben was always open to the idea of having another sister in the family. He had been the only one to always try to incorporate her into family festivities, even when she would deny him of the bond. It was refreshing to see the two come together after she began to give into our undeniably messed up family. The night Ben died a small piece of Winona died too. She was supposed to be the one to sacrifice herself, not him. He did it out of the kindness of his own heart.

That leaves her relationship with me, Vanya. When I initially heard of the news that we'd be getting a new sibling I could hardly contain my excitement. Finally, a member who could accept me for being ordinary. After realizing the dynamic of her between the rest of my siblings made me even more optimistic for her approval. They hated each other, so I thought we could be our own duo. For a reason I still have yet to find, she despised me the worst of them all. It wasn't that she was malicious or evil, she just never gave me the time of day. She would refuse to look in my direction during meals and refused to acknowledge me as a person. As we got older the harsh attitude began to disappear but she was gone before we got the chance to create our own type of bond. Who knows, maybe if she were still here we'd be friends.

Our sixteenth year was the hardest year of our lives together as a family. We still were trying to collect ourselves as a new team with the loss of our brother, Five. We didn't know how to operate on only seven wheels, when normally we had eight. Although I was never involved in any missions, I still felt the cold gap within the number system. Early into the year we tragically lost the life of our beloved brother, Ben. He had bravely sacrificed himself for the greater good of his family. He truly showed us what it was like to be completely selfless within our deranged idea of a home. When we lost him, we lost yet another piece of ourselves.

Ben had been who Eight would cling onto now that her parter was missing in action. He helped her learn how to use her own powers with the absence of Five. She grew independent for the first time in regards to using her powers. Now with the absence of her two core members who tied her into her family, she felt an entirely new type of isolation.

I wasn't there when it happened, but from the horrendous facial expressions of my remaining siblings, I knew something had went terribly wrong. Regional came storming into the academy with the lifeless corpse of our adopted sister. Without a word of explanation, he took her into his office and got to work on preserving her body. We were completely confused as to why he felt the need to preserve her, but it was one of our main rules to not ask questions. Our father often told us that giving out simple answers was a poor mans game. Whatever that meant.

Now that I am an adult, I can't help but to ponder the relationship Winona held with each of us, me specifically. She held the academy together like glue, even if everyone was too dense to realize. She knew her priorities, she knew her goals, and she knew how to achieve them. She showed the team how to work together without letting their ego's spill into their line of work. After she was gone, the team returned to their dick measuring contest, quickly forgetting the part about how to respect one another in regards to their abilities.

Although I wish I could only speak highly of the girl, she also had her flaws. She was bitter, she was cold, and she lacked empathy. She only thought her priority in the family was to be on the team. As much as all of us say we were a real family, we weren't, and she always reminded us of that. Dad wasn't a dad to her, mom wasn't a mom to her, and we weren't siblings to her. Just part of a team. As much as we took part in that by ridiculing her when she first arrived, it wasn't completely our fault. Even when we accepted her for who she was, she never gave us the time of day. The only one she had ever spilled real secrets and gossip to was Five and Ben, but now they're gone and so is she. I guess having a real sister was never in my cards, and having a real family was never in hers.

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Sorry for such a short chapter but I wanted to add a blurb from Vanya's book that Eight had been reading. If you're still confused, her powers resemble Dr.Strange's.

Also, I didn't put her entire backstory in this because I want to keep a few things hidden for now <3