Chaotic Good | the umbrella academy

FOUR

CHAPTER FOUR
'I WANT TO GO HOME. '

Eddie slipped out from her hiding place of the bank, her ginger hair pulled into a ponytail and a black mask decorated with white eyepieces covering the top of her face. Not a single robber noticed her stalk silently towards one with their back turned to her.

One of the burglar's abandoned crowbars flew into her outstretched hand, and she spun to gain momentum on her swing and smacked a man across the head with it. He stumbled with her hit, grabbing a table to steady himself. As he shook his head, he reached up to touch his bloody wound, and a snarl formed on his face.

"You bitch!"

He charged at her, but she ducked under his fist and turned, bashing his kneecap with the crowbar. Crumbling from the blow, he drew his gun and fired the shots. The room became colder as Eddie's green eyes became vibrant. As the bullets catapulted towards her, they stopped suddenly and then dropped to the ground, falling like rain.

She tilted her head as he stared up at her with wide eyes. "Bitch is a boring and overused insult. One day, someone will spice it up and use an insult that's actually offensive. Go on, try again, and if it's good, I might let you live."

The man was silent, and she stopped, hands coming to her hips. "You're a psycho," he spat, and she sighed, pursing her lips.

"Alright, bye-bye." A wave of energy erupted from her body and launched the man into a wall, the impact shattering his bones. "If you wanted to know, anything with the word cunt in it would have saved your life."

Eddie's eyes flickered, her brain pulling itself out of the dissociation and finding herself in her lab. Returning to her childhood home had caused memories to resurface that she'd preferred to have forgotten. The punishment she'd gotten the moment her father had received news that one of the robbers was dead had been the first step in wanting to retire from the 'superhero' lifestyle.

Sometimes, the memory of the strobe flashing lights and the high-pitched noise was strong enough to send her into a panic. She'd lost a good chunk of that year to the resultant dissociation.

Eddie's eyes fluttered around the lab, trying her hardest to keep herself from falling into her brain's clutches again. She focused on the large congregation of tables sitting in the centre, then the glass screen on one side of the wall with a swarm of monitors, followed by the window showcasing the garden. Quickly to avoid thinking about the man and his funeral, her gaze moved to the glass cage with a lonely table in the centre before her.

The engineer moved to the mass of tables, searching through her bag and pulling out an iron band. She placed it on the table before pausing and looking down at her wrist with an identical bracelet.

"Hermes?" She cleared her throat to disrupt the crack, which caused her voice to waver. "Are we ready to test drive this thing?"

"Always, miss," the AI replied.

Before she moved, her eyes flickered to an oak tree in the garden. Immediately, she pulled them away, pursing her lips in frustration. Then her gaze found the glass cage, and there was nothing more she could have done.

Eddie placed a large box onto the cage floor, rushing out as she pulled dark-glassed goggles over her face. Reginald Hargreeves moved forward and spun the wheel on the door until it clicked. She glanced at her father, who wore a white lab coat and a similar pair of goggles to her. Smiling as he gave her a nod, she looked to the ceiling.

"Hermes?"

"Yes, miss?"

"Initiate testing program seventeen." She leaned against the table and tightly grabbed the surface. An explosion erupted from the cage, and lasers of fire lit up the room, lasting for a few minutes before sprinklers popped from the ceiling and poured water onto the blazing flames.