PYROMANIAC - (Umbrella Academy) X Five Hargreeves

1:2

Lena was always a silent observer.

The handler liked that.

What the Handler didn't like was her attitude. She said what she was thinking whether the person she was talking to liked it or not, and that caused a rift with the other workers.

She wasn't exactly friendly. Now, the Handler could have cared less if she made friends or not, all she was interested in was her ability.

The Handler did like the fact she was quick not only with her wit but with her learning; curiosity sometimes led to trouble, but her training went by without a hitch and she was good.

She wasn't just monotonous and predictable like all the other drones the Commission produced. She was better.

The problem with being better, was that Lena knew it.

She knew the Handler would do anything to keep her as one of her toy soldiers, whether she acted out or not.

She could handle the attitude, the silent rebellion, the will to go where she wanted whether she was allowed to or not. That, she could handle, though the Handler could only be pushed so far with the young girl.

Over the years her powers developed as she was able to train in an environment that could withhold her abilities.

But just because they had provided a means to control what had once destroyed her life, it didn't mean that she was grateful to be with the commission.

Not at all.

Lena would rather have died that day on her tenth birthday along with her family.

She knew, internally, and always had - that she was a puppet on a string, belittled and punished when she stepped a toe out of line, when things went wrong and others needed someone to blame, when she made a mistake. Or, when they felt like it.

The straw that broke the camels back after years of silent rebellion and talking back, was the mission in 1666, London.

It was by no means a simple task and her boss knew it when she handed over the file with a pointed smile. An agent had gone rogue and it was her job to eliminate the problem.

Lena was assured he was the only one. It was meant to be an easy job.

The Handler didn't usually keep things from her, but when she did, she knew the woman had an anterior motive to this job. She knew it, deep down, when she accepted that something was off.

Upon creeping closer to the bakery in the middle of london, quiet as ever in the dead of night, bullets had been fired. Not from her, and certainly not from guns made in this decade.

Everything went wrong. He wasn't alone.

She tried to kill him, but with six other men she ended up shot in the shoulder and fell to the floor, knocking the breath right out of her lungs.

A blaze had quickly flickered to life around her, creeping up the walls of the bakery and the gunshots were few and far between now. In the roar of it all, she stayed hidden. But she had to kill him in order to get the job done.

Gritting her teeth through the pain, ignoring the blood, she boiled the insides of two men trying to kill her and ran out into the street, head snapping left and right in search for him. She had to find him.

She didn't want to think about what consequences she'd face if she fucked this one up.

But a small part of her knew the Handler had planned this all out meticulously so that she was doomed to fail.

And she was from the very start.

Lena knew the Handler needed an excuse for the higher ups to get rid of her, and this was it.

The blaze rippled across the old wooden houses, creeping down the narrow street, and she could hear the awful screams. They echoed in her ears and all Lena wanted was to cover them like she used to do as a child when her parents fought.

Ironically, those had been simpler times.

She raced down an alley behind the blazing house, not bothered by the heat of the flames she had caused crackling at her legs. She didn't get further than the crumbling wall.

Lena felt a force knock her onto her back and her vision went black. She could feel the heat burning in her veins, rushing out of her body. Her shoudler was now aching along with her chest. She couldn't breathe for some reason.

She stared up at the smoky black sky, her mouth open and trying to inhale breaths that she simply could not make. The smoke, the flames, it was her fault. The pressure on her chest was paralyzing and tears stung her eyes. Panic gripped her in a chokehold.

Upon waking up after a week of being treated, she was rightly expecting punishment. The Handler was not happy with her, not happy at all.

She needed to be taught a very serious lesson.

"You know what timeline to drop her off at," the Handler spoke to the worker, hand on her shoudler, nails clawing at her wound, almost healed. "You'll be there for as long as it takes for the message to sink in."

And thats how, on the fifth hour of September 19th, 2023, Lena ended up with a gun pointed at her face by a young man her age with with wild eyes and a stern yet confused expression.

"Who the fuck are you?"

All Lena could do was swear. Regret all of her decisions up until this point.

In hindsight, however, it was The Handler who had made the mistake.

She should never have allowed Five Hargreeve's and Lena to meet.