Shadows of Another World (Book 1 in the Until the Last Star series)

Chapter Five

Emma felt more at ease when she made friends out of the Hargreeves. Vanya was by far the kindest one, and they soon became friends. After all, both girls would keep each other company whenever the others had their missions, which were quite frequent. So the portal had to wait for a while since Five had those missions besides all the training they had every single day. Besides Vanya, Klaus was also a kind person, when the terrors of the night before from his training didn't cloud his personality. Ben was shy at first, but soon revealed his show-off nature. Diego and Luther constantly competed, making friendship difficult. They barely spoke. And Allison seemed pretty unapproachable at first because of her air of superiority, but fortunatly she was seeing behind that mask.

As much as she enjoyed spending time with her new friend, Emma would always hope that Five would just barge into her door one day and throw her into the portal that would take her back home. All those questions about how her parents were, if they were looking for her, and many more were going round and round in her mind, it became a challenge to fall asleep early. She may not be a Hargreeves but she had to have her times matched with the others, like for the meals, for example.

Emma didn't have a place at their table, so she would eat in the kitchen where Grace would leave her meals set up, but she had to be at the same time as the others.

It wasn't bad, but she got curious about their training and missions. She couldn't ask Mister Hargreeves, so she'd ask Vanya about the missions. Until something unexpected happened after spending two weeks at the Umbrella Manor.

The alarm had just gone off, signaling a new mission for the Umbrella Academy. It was late in the afternoon and Emma was listening to Vanya playing when both went to the door to watch the others go out.

"Number Seven, you shall go with us this time".

Both girls looked at each other. Vanya gave an apologizing look while Emma just brushed it off. After all, she couldn't go against that man's demands. She was about to go back to her bedroom when Mister Hargreeves spoke again.

"And you as well Miss Cooper".

Emma was confused for a second, but then ran with her friend, who was excited. And she was too.

Until she saw what it was actually about.

Once they all arrived to the place, it was a typical robbery to a bank, but a small one comparing some others, so while the six would go on with their mission, Mister Hargreeves guided the two girls to the small building that was in front of the bank, where they stayed at balcony to watch from a safe distance. But as soon as the robbers came out scared and some of the Hargreeves, her excitement turned into a disturbance.

In comics, movies, and television shows, heroes were known to be mostly forgiving even with the bad guys, so they usually wouldn't kill anyone unless absolutely necessary, but they killed without discrimination. That's when she started to actually understand why Five was the way he was, why all the others seemed to be older than they actually looked. Just maybe not so much on the side of communication.

When everything seemed to be over, they were allowed to go down the building they were in, as there was no sign that the press would arrive at that place so soon. Besides, with clothes similar to theirs and being so close to the others, it would be something suspicious.

"So? What do you think of us now that you've seen us in action?". Diego asked, moving his eyebrows up and down.

"Well... I'm not gonna lie that if I didn't meet you in person, I'd probably be your fan as well." Everyone except Five laughed at the comment.

"Girls! Come!". Reginald called them to go to the car, as helicopters could already be heard from afar.

They both waved to them as they went towards the car passing through the rubble of parts of buildings, no one had noticed that one criminal had been pretending to be dead all this time, that he came out of his hiding place in the rubble to catch Vanya who was the one closer to him, but before the boys could even shout for Vanya to run, Emma had already pulled her friend behind her and threw a kick that hit the man in the chest, who hadn't even noticed that movement or what came next. As he was taller than Emma, ​​she had to throw a blow, something quite complicated for her, as she hadn't learned very well in her self-defense classes, a spinning kick that reached the criminal's head squarely, blacking him out in a second.