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ZERO DIDN'T SPEND MOST OF HER LIFE IN THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY. If anything she didn't end up there until the first academy she was in was mysteriously 'destroyed.'
They called it The Red Room. They were the ones that recruited 28 young orphan girls to raise and turn them into undercover agents and spies. And they found themselves fortunate when they stumbled across a red head who already had remarkable powers within her. The core methodology was designed by a Professor, a leader in the field of psychotechnics, who imprinted people with completely fabricated memories. The man created trigger words for each individual. These black widows were made to believe that they were trained in ballet at the Bolshoi Theatre in Russia (until the words were used against them). But actually, they were all trained from a young age to cultivate a very specific set of skills.
Growing up in that program, Zero was their best student. She was their prized possession, after all being the only one who had inhuman abilities had its perks. She was taught to used them to her advantage. Zero exhibited invisibility, ultimate human levels of strength, and she is extensively trained to near perfection. The girl had the talent of turning into any one of the alias that she has created for herself and actually become them.
She abused her powers and all the other girls feared her for it, and she hated it with a passion to be looked at that way. But she couldn't stop, she couldn't take it all back, and they all couldn't be friendly towards one another either way, knowing what comes in the end — knowing that at some point they must kill each other in order to move on to the next round of the program.
It was either kill or be killed.
At that time, Zero had a horrible melt down — not handling the pressure of her upcoming ceremony correctly, she almost killed everyone that stood in her way. But they injected her with a knockout serum in time before she could cause damage. This gave the professor time to run some tests, coming to a conclusion that she wasn't done evolving yet.
And of course this gave them more reason to use her, making her the perfect candidate to send to do their dirty work.
Few days later, she found herself being ordered to sneak into a mansion owned by The Umbrella Academy and steal something. A book. Without a clue about them or about what she was getting herself into, she obliged, thinking it would go the way her other tasks have gone before — successful.
After all, Zero has never failed them.
She would get in and get out quietly, like a spider, before they even knew it. But she found herself in a predicament, going up against a boy her age who somehow managed to catch her before she left. She almost fought her way out until she realized what she was going up against, someone different, like her. The girl hesitated to continue, she knew of the consequences she would face back home if she came back with nothing but she didn't care. So when the boy captured her, he made the decision of taking her to his father instead of killing her right away.
That night she didn't find herself being tortured for failing, she found herself a new home, she found herself working for 'the good guys.' After all she did promise the boy she'll stay and the bad people, they never looked for her, not once.
But she always did find herself unlucky.
Zero still had her memories intact. The graduation ceremony guaranteed peace, once and for all. They promised they were going to take away some of her painful memories and remake them into something else. They said that this procedure was going to increase her trauma and make her into a better agent. That didn't matter though, she only cared about the wiping but she never got home to that.
So she remembers most of the things that went on in that hell hole — the killing, the torture, and the faces. And she has few to no memories of her life before the program as a result of her first brainwash. Not much memory of her mother, or the real crash that caused both of their deaths. Instead, it was replaced with a fake memory. For her whole life, she lived knowing that she killed her own mother with a smile on her face.
In this new home, she thought she would find something different, a nice change. The girl hoped that in a way, he would be enough. It was unfair though, to put that kind of 'responsibility' on him without even knowing. But she needed a reason to stay. Because Zero found herself being used once more.
It was almost like The Red Room all over again.
Maybe that's her punishment for being born in the first place — for being one out of the forty-three extraordinary children.
