That April morning—on the second day of her assignment—would always be one that Delilah "Lila" Pitts would remember even in the years to come; it was the day that it had started it all. Instinctively she knew that when she had become weathered & grey just like Agent Gloria of the Tube Room, she would remember how the sun had hesitantly peeked through the clouds after such a rainy night, how the alarm clock had rung twice before she had risen from her bed with her hair piled loosely upon her head.
She'd remember how she had arrived the day before, weaving some tale to the other tenants of this apartment complex before she eagerly awaited the arrival of her target. How, in the dead of night, when storms had ripped through the night a blue vortex—normally associated with Mr Fën [Five] and the time travelling briefcases—had lit up the backyard. How, in the early hours of the morning, she had had to haul the drowned rat of a boy out of the yard where he had conveniently collapsed into one of the lawn chairs, and up the stairs to "their" apartment.
She would remember how she had slipped into the adjoining bedroom where her target lay fast asleep and just watched from the doorway as his chest raised and fell in equal motion. Lila would recall the slither of excitement that shivered though her at the thought that this was finally real, how her very first mission in the field—at the ripe old age of fifteen years old—was real and not just some simulation or training regime that her vera was running her through again.
Admittedly, she was slightly bitter that her first mission was just a protection ordeal rather than an assassination one, for which she had been training for her whole life, but a mission was a mission and she wasn't about to throw away this opportunity to show the Commission what she was capable for the sake of her own pride. That would've been a rather stupid move and if Lila was anything, it wasn't stupid—a little big-headed, yes, but not stupid. Her vera [mother] wouldn't have let her go on, if she was really that unfit.
You see, Delilah "Lila" Pitts had grown knowing that she, like the rest of the Hargreeves clan, was one of the miraculous children born to one of the forty-three Virgin Mothers in 1989. But unlike the others—the one who had been purchased by the billionaire-slash-philanthropist or the ones who hadn't even made it out of the womb in one piece—she had been kept by her parents until (former) Agent Fën had come along and slaughtered them. It was only thanks to the kind graces of her vera, The Handler, that she was even still kicking to this day. She had raised her—moulded her—in the image of herself: a hard-working, no-nonsense taking woman with a cunningness that could give a spider a run for its money.
When Lila had first received this mission—her first field mission ever—she had been so excited, but she had also sat down and devoured all that she knew about the Hargreeves—both past & present—and the insertion point where the Trigger was going to reside until her extraction. She needed to know all about them; their strengths, their weaknesses and so on, so that they could be exploited for the good of the timeline and the good of the Commission. Most of the elder Hargreeves—the Umbrella Academy—she found to be unimpressive, neanderthals on a day pass who cried too much and showered too little. The only thing that they lacked more than grit, was any real regard for each other—an example that was displayed on many an occasion—and that was just the ones that were still living!
Of Theodore Niklaus Hargreeves—her target and fellow Garde—she found a life that would be best described as a bad soap opera. Honestly, it made Lila thankful that she had grown up at La Commission du Temps et de L'Space, outside of the timeline instead, amongst all of that crap with the LANE Keepers and Mogadorians. It must've been exhausting always looking over your shoulder or wondering who would be the next one to stab you in the back. It was always better to be the one doing the stabbing, she found. Then again, with this long-term assignment, she might very well be getting a taste of that in the near future if Theodore truly was as important as the Commission seemed to think.
In the end, however, her mission didn't begin with a boom or a bang, there was no blood raining down nor a messenger from up on high who whispered words of fate, destiny and prophecies. No, it simply came with the chirp of the morning birds in their gutter-bound nests as they sang in the morning after such a stormy night and the familiar sounds of a briefcase whooshing into existence. At first, Lila had just assumed that she was overthinking things; that perhaps she was just hearing the ambient noise of the kettle or that one of their neighbours was an early riser going about their exercises before the day had even begun. Either way, Theodore didn't seem to care as he groaned lowly in his sleep and rolled over.
With brows furrowed in puzzlement, Lila slipped from the bedroom and made her way to the living room, sliding down the hall in her woollen socks just for the hell of it, her paisley dressing gown flapping behind her like a cape as she went. Picking up the old baseball bat pockmarked with nails from the cane stand in the hallway (gifted to her by Granny Olga, who lived downstairs), she made her way out into the living room where she prepared herself for her first real adversary, tension bleeding through every inch of her figure.
Instead, what she found made her pause. When she'd awoken that morning, Lila had expected to find the furnishings of a time long past, strewn with the few meagre belongings she had been allowed to bring on this assignment—like she was living inside of a dollhouse—or perhaps if she'd checked beneath the covers, she would've of found Theodore lain out in the bed where she'd dumped him after stripping him out of his wet clothes and shoving him ever-so-delicately into a long crisp nightgown. There, he would lay tucked beneath the covers, feverish but dry…and looking a little worse for wear.
What she had not expected to find, however, was two La Commission du Temps et de L'Space agents standing in the middle of the room like they owned the place. One was clearly a Corrections officer, as told by the carnival rabbit mask that they wore, whilst the other appeared to be one of the Commission's many doctors who specialised in "…building bodies for a better future…" Their words, not hers.
Apprehension filled her small frame as she hesitantly approached, bat lowered but hands still clenched around the handle. The tension had bled out a little from her figure, but nervousness quickly replaced it as it made her small frame stand tall in an effort to appear bigger, much like a kitten puffing up its fur. It was cute, but not entirely threatening.
Lila had never liked the doctors and tended to avoid the Commission's medical department as much as humanly possible because they always seemed to carry around this hungry look in their eyes. It was the kind of look that said they couldn't wait to tear you open to see what made you tick; like only the Commission's policies were what was keeping them from turning everyone into Frankenstein's monster. This one was no different.
"Agent Pitts?" Rabbit grunted, gruffly greeting the young girl.
Lila shuffled on her feet, subconsciously placing herself between the hallway to Theodore's bedroom and the hungry-eyed doctor in the banana-yellow boiler suit. "Yessir?"
"Please step aside and allow Doctor Terminal to attend to The Trigger" Rabbit gruffly instructed as he pulled her aside by the elbow.
"…Hm" Lila hummed as she paused for a moment or two before moving aside to allow Doctor Terminal through, because no matter what she thought of their kind, Theodore really did need the help.
Rabbit then proffered a clipboard and a pen. "And sign here, to state that you have received this package and agree to these terms"
Normally any packages of this kind would be sent by pneumatic tube, but because Theodore had needed the calibre of medical attention not found in this era, an exception had been made. It was not the first one to be made in any of the timelines, mind you, but Lila could count the number of times an in-person delivery had been made on one hand. It just wasn't done. Signing on the dotted line, Lila was then presented with a small newspaper-bound package, tied together with woollen string. Inside, she found a postscript written in her vera's elegant scrawl:
Good morning, Little One, rise and shine!
Today marks the beginning of your first mission and I know it'll go off without a hitch, here is a little something to help you along!
Best of luck,
Vera
XX
The package itself was nondescript, built of nothing more than a bunch of sharpened pencils, a couple of notebooks and a few sheafs of loose paper; presumably to make archiving the days on this assignment, easier. And although the mail delivery had been a surprise, she had half-expected her vera to hand-deliver the package to her, herself. But maybe she had held back this time in the hopes that the higher ups didn't think she was interfering with her daughter's mission. Because, as much as Lila loved the woman, she did have a bit of a reputation about toeing the line to an almost rebellious degree.
Placing the package aside, Lila then turned to investigate what the fuck Doctor Terminal was doing, because she sure as hell didn't trust him to be alone with Theodore. Not if the rumours about him were true, anyway; horrifying things that described cannibalism and the conversion of energy to prolong death. It was enough to give anyone the heebie-jeebies. Yanking open the bedroom door, she found herself confronted by the sight of her target lain flat against the bed, soaked to the bone with sweat and shaking terribly.
Looking at him like this, it was easy to see how young the boy really was—according to his file, he'd only just entered his teens—and he looked like he had seen better days (not hard). The clothes he had arrived in were far too wet to still be worn, which was why what could be salvaged was hanging up, on the washing line to dry whilst things like the singed party hat which had seemed to give up halfway down, was chucked into the bin. Still, the flags of their laundry waved in the air.
Out there was the war-torn vest of military make (possibly something that had once belonged to an elder family member for it had been far too big for the boy's slender frame), that bore several holes in the torso like someone had taken some artillery to it and the loose threads hung from the edges like shredded yarn. Nearby were the base layers of a school uniform, although the shirt & shorts were stained with both ash and loralite-blue blood that she just knew would be like the dickens to get out. And then there were the pair of bowling shoes which sat in the bathtub, air drying in the tub; they had been in much the same condition as the rest of the ensemble now hung out to dry.
Currently however, the mushy remains of his cast had been tossed aside whilst the chest of the nightgown had been ripped open so that Doctor Terminal could get a better assessment of the boy, or so he said. Though Lila could only despair over having to either fix the bloody thing or get a whole new one because it wasn't going to be wearable otherwise. But, in doing so, it did reveal the full extent of Theodore's Lien du Lorne. It was almost pretty in the way that it crawled over his torso, standing brightly in contrast to the boy's pale flesh like the golden cracks of a kintsugi pot. And Lila found herself entranced with the patterns that those loralite-filled veins made, twisting around and around like the tiniest of galaxies painted in blue or the mathematically-placed swirling stars of A Starry Night.
Bar from a few pained whimpers and mournful whimperings, the boy had yet to properly awaken even under the doctor's ministrations. Which would've been fine, if not for the brown coils plastered to his face with sweat and the rosy cheeks splattered with tears tracks over his faintly glistening freckles. A sure sign of fever settling in. There was also the scent of blood on the air; sharp & tangy, that set her on edge. All of this fluttered through her mind in an instant, thanks to her Corrections training taking everything in at once. Though, the logicalness of the anecdotes did little to settle her nerves, though and she was sure that she would never ever forget this day.
As Agent Lila Pitts hovered protectively nearby and Agent Rabbit shadowed the both of them from the corner of the room, as Doctor Terminal in turn, eagerly sat himself at The Trigger's bedside and assaulted him with a myriad of medical devices in his excitement to see what they had brought him. It was very rare that the doctors like himself, were ever brought into the field like this. But The Handler had always been one of those people who could circumvent the rules with nary a punishment. And this was her daughter, there was no way she wasn't going to pull out all the stops for this one.
Still, annoyance fluttered briefly through his veins as he worked. He could feel the girl's eyes on him as he traced the length of the boy's exposed torso with a gloved finger, but that feeling was soon replaced with enrapture as he watched the pronounced blue veins danced out of the way of the fat latex-gloved digit. It was enough to make the doctor's mouth water at the possibilities that he could use this kind of power for, and he likely would've—damn the Commission!—if it weren't for his supervisor in the background. Watching them with the eyes of a hunter behind that ghastly rabbit mask; mores the pity. Instead, he would have to settle for the general practise of this basic assessment and come back at a later date to collect on that unspoken promise.
LA COMMISSION DU TEMPS ET DE L'SPACE
DU LIVRE DE DR TERMINAL
THE TRIGGER
Date of Examination: April 4, 1914
Time of Examination: 09:35am
Examiner: Doctor Terminal
Supervisor: Agent Rabbit
Patient's Name: Theodore Niklaus Hargreeves
Alias: The Trigger
Patient Number: 072564318
Date and Place of Birth: April 1, 2006, Queens Hospital Centre
Current Place of Habitation: The Stellar Suites, Vickery Meadows, Dallas, TX
Supervisor: Agent Lila Pitts
Complaints: Lien du Lorne [The Bond of the Forsaken] and the Spins
Prognosis: Poor
MAIN SYMPTOMS
LIEN DU LORNE
— Pronounced blue veins
— Fluctuating fever
— Excruciating pain/body aches
— Nightmares
— Vomiting/Nausea
— [Eventual] Death
THE SPINS
— Dizziness/lightheadedness
— Loss of focus [Extreme]
— Emotional moodswings
— Cotton headedness
— Dry mouth
— [General] Confusion
With the patient drifting in & out of consciousness, there is very little that I can determine during this general examination—a more thorough examination will have to be performed once the patient is fully conscious. In the meantime, I can be sure of the most obvious symptoms:
— The Trigger's fever keeps fluctuating at worrying extremes, bathing the patient in sweat.
— The Trigger keeps mumbling & writhing in his sleep. Likely a combination of both the nightmares and the painful body aches from the Lien du Lorne.
— Anergia is present.
— The persistent smacking of lips indicates the Trigger's dry mouth, a common symptom of the Spins.
— The Trigger's supervisor, Agent Lila Pitts, reports that a puddle of vomit was found next to the patient's body upon discovery. Likely expelled there after his sudden insertion into the timeline.
— Sleep is disturbed
— Pronounced veins are flooded with the blue blood of a Garde's loralite-filled body
— Previous injuries to the body include a missy eye, where the socket is singed around the edges. Remnants of a glass eye was found within the socket and removed to the best of my abilities.
— Other injuries include the [wet] cast upon the previously broken arm and the litany of scars earned throughout the patient's childhood.
— There are no known listings of any suicidal inclinations or infatuations
— Urine/blood tests have come back negative for illicit drug usage
— Brief physical shows that the patient's blood pressure is elevated to 152/92
ADDITIONAL SIGNS OR POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS
— Sedatives effects of the [provided] medication are as described
— Patient remains unconscious, but expresses the general symptoms of the Spins & Lien du Lorne
— No other injuries/illnesses have been reported
SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES
— Agent Lila reports that the Trigger's fluctuating fever has not fallen since he was retrieved upon his insertion into the timeline
— Agent Lila's LA COMMISSION DU TEMPS ET DE L'SPACE briefcase is within reach, in case of emergencies
— Agent Lila has been instructed to contact LA COMMISSION DU TEMPS ET DE L'SPACE should things get worse
IMPRESSION
— Lien du Lorne is currently the most concerning issue
— Agent Lila is instructed to follow patient's care instructions to the T. Should things escalate beyond her abilities, Agent Lila is to contact LA COMMISSION DU TEMPS ET DE L'SPACE for assistance.
— Long-term lifespan of the Trigger is less than optimal
— The Trigger's life is in jeopardy and, by my estimate, the patient is scheduled to expire long before the deadline
— Further investigations & preventions will have to be put in place.