Sounds Like School Spirit
Not all missions that the Umbrella Academy undertook were quite so comic book worthy as fighting off robots, some were far, far simpler. Oddly enough, in Willa's experience, it was these more humble missions that tended to leave the greatest mark on the team. Shortly after their twelfth birthday, for instance, Willa found herself standing on the edge of a large football field in some seemingly random Washington high school's grounds. It was quite a brisk early evening, and she was freezing in the getup she had been forced to wear purely to fit in, but yet, she couldn't find herself to mad about it.
It had been so long since she had worn anything other than knee length skirts and dresses, she had almost entirely forgotten what it was even like to have knees. Her recent brush with puberty had also not helped anything, still caught slightly off guard whenever she caught sight of the small, subtle changes that were happening to her body, suddenly developing a slight curve to her hips and even needing to wear a little padded bra, not one of those training ones, and while part of her found the changes with her body fascinating, another part of herself just found it horribly awkward, like she suddenly had a large spotlight on her. Did the other kids notice, like how everyone had giggled and teased Five when he had come downstairs one morning with his voice broken? She didn't really like the idea that they did, but at the same time it felt kind of exciting and grownup, and like a start towards freedom from damn Reginald.
Until then, though, she still had to deal with freezing her newly discovered knees off.
They weren't technically, fully, undercover, there was no big cover story that they had to memorise, they hadn't had to remember false names and little personal details about their personas, which made for kind of a nice change, but they were pretending to be ordinary high school kids, just for the night, with permission and full knowledge of the school teaches, and thus far none of the kids that Willa had come close to had spared her much more than a curious glance, seemingly to excited for the upcoming game to even really care that some random red head was hanging around...dressed up as a cheer-leader, no less. She shivered again and risked a wary glance up at the sky, hoping rain wasn't on the forecast, and firmly curled her arms around her middle, the fitted, sleeveless top lifting up slightly. It felt kind of weird to not be wearing knee high woollen socks, either, a pair of cute ankle socks with a lace ruffle peeking above white trainers, which had a blue and yellow pom-pom sticking on them. The pleated, blue and yellow skirt was way shorter than anything she had worn in years, but it had shorts beneath, so...she wasn't to subconscious. She kind of looked good, actually, hair pulled back in a high ponytail, cute and girly, and if she didn't glance at her left wrist and at her tattoo, she wouldn't even know she wasn't just an ordinary girl.
A loud laugh rang out and Willa pulled her gaze across to the side, where Allison was giggling and acting even more girly than normal, dressed up in the same cheer-leader outfit, doing a series of at least six back-flips, before landing smoothly and taking a bow, cheered on by several of the other girls that made up the real cheer squad. Willa wasn't entirely sure what the other girls had been told, something about her and Allison being there to check out the school and see if they liked it...Willa wasn't really sure how realistic that all actually was, but she guessed that to a group of twelve and thirteen year old girls, it sounded believable enough, and, hey, Allison seemed to be providing the other girls with a good distraction by giggling and performing for them all.
Willa sighed slightly to herself and looked away, half-whishing she had the same confidence to show-boat around like that, but being surrounded by a bunch of girls that were all the same age as her, she suddenly remembered the fact that she had only had Meg to call a friend, back in the day. It wasn't so much due to a lack of confidence, either, she just...well, she guessed that she was pretty comfortable just being on her own, though she definitely liked hanging out with the other Umbrella kids. Must be an only child thing, she figured, either that or she was just kind of very picky about her friends. Either way, Allison was definitely what her Ma would have called a 'Social butterfly,' which was rather ironic when one considered just how isolated Allison's life had been, thus far.
"What the hell are you wearing?"
She looked around sharply and felt herself nearly instantly colouring at the sight of Five standing behind her, gaping at her, while a large camera hung around his neck. He looked odd; too, wearing a navy polo shirt with a dark red jacket over it...God, he was even wearing dark wash jeans and a pair of black Converses. He looked preppy, as Allison would have declared from one of her fashion magazines that she snuck into the house from their monthly trips into the real world, and on Five, that look was just a little startling to see. Especially the jeans and Converses, Willa never would have pictured him in those.
"What about you?" she shot back, slightly defensively, and suddenly she whished her legs were a tiny bit more covered up as she noticed how his green eyes seemed to be taking her in, lips slightly parted, and eyebrows arched high. She shifted slightly on the spot, pom-pom's wiggling on her trainer tops, "Did your dad seriously let you wear jeans?"
He barely seemed to hear her, still staring at her...and was his cheeks flushing? Willa felt oddly, suddenly, very warm all over, her stomach doing a funny little flip sensation, kind of like when she missed the stairs back at the Academy after a late-night training session. She had never seen anyone look at her like that, let alone Five, of all people, she wasn't even entirely sure what that look even said, to be honest, but it felt good. Like, really good.
"Cat got you tongue?" she asked slightly with a curl to her lips, feeling oddly...confident, all of a sudden, and she didn't even know why, tone growing teasing.
Five blinked and reeled back very slightly from her, and there was definitely a slight blush to his cheeks he tried and failed to glare at her. He dropped his gaze away from her after barely a second, though, proving that whatever was going on in his head, it was still bothering him.
"You look like the biggest high school stereotype," he said with seemingly his best efforts to come off biting and sarcastic, narrowing his eyes at her...or rather, at something slightly over her right shoulder.
"So do you," she shot back, very slightly affronted, now, "Let me guess...school newspaper?"
His expression soured, "Klaus got off easy," he huffed irritably, finally meeting her eyes properly, "Why dad thought I needed to play camera-boy and Klaus got off just getting to be a damn observer, I don't know. I've never taken a picture in my life".
"Would you trust Klaus with a camera?"
"Good point".
Willa smirked very slightly and tried not to think about how Klaus had used her own camera, which she had gotten years back for her birthday, to take a number of glamour shots of himself. She hadn't minded that, but the other pic's were another story. Not enough brain bleach in the world for that, made even worse by the fact that she had unwittingly given the film to Grace and asked her to develop it for her...Yeah, so, no more cameras in the house after that. And they had all been forced to spend a day talking about impropriate pictures and laws surrounding those pictures, and wasn't that just a cheery chat to have with old, stony-faced Reggie. By the end of it, they all wanted to kill Klaus, because it was bad enough getting the birds and bees talk, and learning about puberty, the first time, getting a lecture about that was just agonising.
"No sign of anything suspicious?" Five cast his gaze around them, his expression morphing into a nearly predatory look, eyes glinting dangerously and almost hopefully, as if he was more than happy for an excuse for a fight.
"Nope," she shook her head, popping the P as she glanced around them, too, almost bored. She arched a brow, glancing over to where the stands were starting to swiftly fill, the distant sound of car horns and cheering sounding from the car park, "Just a whole lotta pom-poms and Allison showing off, as per usual..." she cut him a sideways glance, curious, "Do you really think some baddies are going to kidnap some thirteen year old girl just for ransom? I mean, it all feels so high school".
The girl in question, of course, was no ordinary girl, or her mum wasn't. Her mum was some sort of high profile lawyer who had been making a big name for herself lately with a big case about some pharmacological company that had been massively undercutting their workers. The girls mum had blown the story wide open to the public by pushing the case into the media, rather than keeping it hush-hush, like the company had tried to urge the judge for, and in doing so threats had been issued against the family. Willa wasn't entirely sure why Reggie felt their efforts needed to protect some thirteen-year-old girl from being kidnapped, but whatever. It was probably all about good PR, showing the public that the Umbrella Academy was there to protect everyone, not just save people from killer robots and bank robbers.
"They better try something," Five glared at nothing in the distance, expression souring again, "This stupid camera's heavy".
"Right," she rolled her eyes, throwing him a flat look, "Because this is all about you and your poor neck. How silly of me for being mildly concerned about a girl being possibly kidnapped!"
He turned his sour glare onto her, "People are kidnapped all the time, Willa," he remarked, utterly unconcerned, "Are you going to cry about all of them?"
"I said 'Mildly concerned,' Five, I'm not crying. You're all heart, by the way".
He rolled his eyes and smirked, almost slyly...Willa frowned at him in bemusement as to why he was suddenly eyeing her like a serial killer, when he suddenly lifted the camera around his neck and snapped a picture of her. And then another. And another...
"Smile," he told her, oddly cheerfully, "You're supposed to be a cheerleader, remember?"
"Oh, my God, stop it!" she tried shielding her face, though she couldn't help it...she smiled and laughed, "Stop it! I so don't need picture evidence of this!"
Oddly enough, Five actually seemed to be having fun, smiling properly as he purposely shoved the camera as close into her face as he could, dodging around her hands and weaving around her, snapping the entire time. She dreaded to imagine how many blurred pictures he was taking, wasting so much film, but she could only giggle and try and squirm away from him, covering her face as best she could, even though she knew that he had to surely have gotten lucky and snapped properly a few decent, full face and body ones already.
"What are you doing?" Diego's voice cut through the air, and Willa and Five instantly froze, both meeting eyes as Five stood right in front of her, camera lens almost smacking into her forehead, before they both slowly turned to find the stockier boy eyeing them in bewilderment...his lips slowly curved into a teasing little smile, "Sorry," he raised his eyebrows, dark eyes flickering questioningly between them, "Was I interrupting something..."
"No," Five said, instantly almost spitting out the word, and immediately he was scowling again and backing away, lowering the camera back to rest on his chest.
"No!" Willa said at the same time, far more breathlessly and guilty sounding, eyes wide and cheeks pink. She absently straightened her top, slightly awkwardly, while Diego caught her eye and waggled his eyebrows teasingly.
"What is it, Number Two?" Five snapped very slightly, suddenly full of impatience and annoyance, eyes narrowed on the slightly taller boy, "Don't you have a bench to be warming with Number One?"
Diego spared him a slightly annoyed glare, "I was just doing a perimeter check," he said slightly pointedly, levelling him with a tight, thin smile, "You know, keeping to the mission, making sure we're not jumped...or did you forget why we're here in the first place?" he flickered a dubious glance over to Willa, his gaze briefly running over her uniform, "Both of you?"
Five almost audibly clenched his teeth together and looked ready to throttle his own brother, stepping forward, in front of Willa, into Diego's line of sight.
"We were just briefing one another on where we are at," he gritted out, "But if you think otherwise, Number Two, why don't you just come out and..."
Willa sighed and rolled her eyes skywards.
"I'm going to check the locker room," she cut in, and Five and Diego instantly looked sharply back to her, both boys now standing nearly chest-to-chest, looking ready to kill one another, and she had been around them both enough to know that neither backed down from a fight. She wasn't even sure why Five was so damn prickled right now, but she also really didn't care. She spared them with a flat look, "If you're going to kill one another, maybe do it somewhere a little more discreet, yeah?"
She left them to it, feeling their eyes burning into her back...she resisted the very strong urge to glance back or tug her skirt down, weirdly feeling as if they were staring at her legs. She was just feeling weird about having her legs on such full display like this, she told herself, and while it didn't really help with the feelings of paranoia she felt, it worked long enough for her to get out of their line of direct sight. She almost ended up tripping over someone as they sat on the ground partly beneath the back of one of the distant bleachers, a pair of legs encased in jeans and boots sticking out...it was only the last two years of extensive training and honing her reflexes that allowed her to skip over the legs, before she tripped herself up.
"Hey, you probably wanna..." she trailed off and stared, wide eyed, down at Klaus. He giggled up at her and didn't even bother to try and hide the burning cigarette he had in his hand, head lolling slightly to the side, eyes looking kind of glassy and distant, and bloodshot. She stopped and gaped at him in disbelief, then at the smoke, which didn't look like one she'd seen before, and then back to his rather dopey looking expression. A strong, unfamiliar organic scent wafted through the air. She frowned at him, "Klaus, what the hell?"
"Hey!" Klaus grinned lazily up at her, giggling still to himself, squinting his eyes, as if he was struggling to see her properly, "It's Willy-Billy! Hey girl, girlie, chick, chickadee..."
"Are you...drunk?"
"No!" he only seemed to laugh harder, slapping his hand on his knee, peering up at her with a wide, bright, slightly off looking smile, "I'm high, obviously! Way better than being drunk!"
Willa processed that for a second, before she groaned and closed her eyes, breathing out a slow, calming breathe through her nose in an effort to not shake him. High...fucking hell, Klaus was high, on a mission...trust him to go to a high school football game and, unsupervised, manage to find some new and creative means to dull his sensors, and apparently it had really worked for him. He seemed way happier than he ever did when drunk, but that was also super problematic, because his dad was going to murder him and bury his body in the courtyard when he found out, and her...well, she would probably get sent to some sort of finishing school in Russia, somewhere super bleak and cold, year-round.
"Your dad is going to kill us, Klaus".
He simply took another drag from his joint and blissfully tried to blow a circle with the smoke, while she stared at him in horror and disbelief, struggling to decide what to even do. She couldn't tell anyone, well, not Luther or Allison, anyway, Diego and Ben would probably help cover, and Five would be more apathetic than anything else to it, so useless. Her best hope was that Klaus possibly sobered up enough before they had to leave and no one would be any the wiser, it wasn't even like he was expected to be that helpful on this mission, anyway, so no one would even really notice. She sighed to herself and moved to carefully crouch down beside him.
"Stay here, please?" she half-pleaded, hoping dearly that the weird, strong-smelling scent of that smoke wasn't getting into her hair and clothing, "I'll be back with some water, okay? And...maybe Ben, if I can find him, just...just stay out of sight, and stop smoking that stuff..."
"It's weed, Willy..."
"Whatever, Klaus, just...go easy on it, now. Think about what your dad will do if he catches you, or me, for that matter".
Klaus blinked up at her and made a dramatic 'Ooh' sound, and Willa conceded that she was getting no promises then that from him right now, straightening as he burst into more giggles and fell sideways, onto the ground, curled up in a ball. She gave him one last exasperated frown, before turning and heading off again, towards where the girl's locker room was located, set right back away from the football field. She soon reached the entrance and slipped inside, the smell of different types of performs and deodorants smacking her in the face like a giant strawberry, floral, bubblegum, slap. She sneezed slightly and pushed on, rounding the corner into the otherwise rather ordinary locker-room. She sneezed again, a series of at least three violent sneezes...giving the guy who grabbed her the perfect chance to do so, before she even saw him coming. At least, that's the excuse she used when old Reggie questioned her about it. It still didn't exactly go down well, but better that then admitting that she simply had strolled in and not thought for a second about possibly being grabbed while on an active mission.
(She still got stuck with practicing special awareness training for a month).
"Don't move," a deep, male voice rumbled in her ear, and Willa immediately tensed up and seemed to forget every bit of training she had ever done in the last few years, eyes slightly blurry from the sneezing, but she didn't need her eyes to feel the indent of a gun being pressed into her temple, "Try and fight, little girl, and I'm blowing your pretty little head right off. Scream and it's the same deal. Got it?"
Willa shakily breathed and nodded, just slightly, struggling not to flinch at the feeling the gun barrel rubbing against her hairline. Oh, God, this was far from ideal. She'd been shot at before, sure, loads of times, that was old news, but a gun aimed to the head directly like this? Yeah, that was a new, terrifying thing. Her mouth was like sand and her knees felt like rubber, and she couldn't help again being utterly horrified by how exposed her body was right now. What if this guy was a pervert? If he started trying to touch her...no, she'd have to fight back, no way in hell was she gonna let him do that to her, gun be damned.
Her heart raced as she flickered her eyes around the locker room, only to become aware that there was at least three other guys lurking in there, too. The lights were gloomy, casting big shadows around the locker room, and there were several nifty hiding spots for blokes like this to hide out in while they waited for their girl to come walking in. It was just Willa's bad luck that she happened to have walked in, instead of their actual target. She cringed as she felt the guy with the gun to her head roughly jostle her arm, hard enough to leave fingerprints bruised into her flesh, no doubt.
"Over to the bench," he growled in her ear, sending a cold shiver of dread down her spine, "You're gonna sit down on the floor and we're gonna tie you to it. You try and run or do anything, and you're dead".
If this was action movie, like Luther and Diego seemed to imagine themselves to be in, then Willa would have been all brave and tough, and turned right around and disarmed this guy with a few quick turns and kicks. She had been taught how to do it, she'd even managed to disarm Five a couple of times, but this wasn't a stupid movie, and this was her real life on the line right now, and Willa wasn't a hero. She was a twelve-year-old girl against grown men, and she was fucking terrified right now, so scared she could barely breathe. She felt like vomiting. All of Reggie's training was nothing compared to the real thing right now. All of his nonsense about being a team and working together, and how powerful they were against any enemy was just rubbish and talk, when she had a real gun pressing against her temple and a bunch of real-life bad guys leering at her from the darkness of some random girl's locker room. She wasn't cut out for this, she didn't want it, she just wanted to go home, back to Wales, back to Ma.
"Okay," she breathed, shakily, weakly.
The guy didn't let her go or lift the gun as she somehow, shakily, walked over to the wooden bench that sat in the middle of the room for the girls to sit on while putting their shoes on. She slowly sunk down onto the ice-cold concrete floor, but she didn't even feel the chill as she felt her hands being grabbed roughly and shoved sharply back behind her back, almost pulling them from her shoulder sockets. She bit her lip to hold back crying as she felt cable ties being painfully pulled tight around her wrists, digging sharply into the delicate flesh there as she was tied to the wooden frame of the bench leg. The gun had been pulled back from her head at some point, but she hadn't even noticed, not until one of the men suddenly grabbed her roughly by her chin and forced her face up.
He had a large gap between his front teeth, which were cracked from a lifetime of being smacked in the face, while his nose was croaked and seemingly broken badly several times over the years. He looked around forty or fifty, with mean little watery blue eyes and a rounded jaw line. He peered into her face, breathe blowing some of the little flyaway hairs off her sweaty face, and smirked.
"Pretty little thing," he murmured, his thumb stroking her cheek...she almost gagged in disgust, face screwing up as she tried to pull back from him. He only tightened his old on her chin, and she froze, terrified he might snap her jaw. His smirk grew, "Wrong time, wrong place, little girl".
"We have to kill her," one of the other men said, lurking still largely in the shadows of the room, his voice, though, was softer then the first man. However, it was also colder.
"It was supposed to be an open and shut kidnapping," another said. He sounded young and less experienced, almost a little panicky, "No one said nothing about killing little girls..."
"No one ever says it, but everyone knows it's a possibility, idiot. You don't go into this business without having to maybe kill somebody".
Oddly enough, Willa actually found this chatter to be kind of calming. The guy who had grabbed her chin released her and seemed to be listening to his men speak, and it gave her the exact thing she needed: Space. Okay, she'd done the whole freak out thing, and God, yes, was she way out of her depth and probably going to need to add this to the ever-growing list of things she needed to get therapy for when she was older, but she also recognised that right now, she was the only chance she had of saving herself. She wasn't a hero, but she could be her own hero...God, that sounded way lamer than she thought it would, even in her own head, but the point was still the same. She had two choices here, sit here and cry and be scared, or...fight back.
She was gonna fight back.
She didn't stand a chance of fighting back on her own, though. Sure, she could probably take out one of two of these guys, but no way all of them on her own, not if they all went at her at once, which they would do, of course, because this wasn't a stupid action movie where the bad guys wait their turn to attack the hero. She was too small, too weak, and like she was constantly reminded during training, nowhere near good enough at fighting as the other kids were. But, she didn't have to be, because she had a secret weapon these idiots didn't know about. She didn't need a phone to call her friends, all she had to do was close her eyes...but it did mean leaving her body vulnerable. She risked a quick glance at the guys, all of them bickering between themselves now, discussing what to do with her, their next step...not exactly criminal geniuses, this lot, but they were serious, and she was seriously creeped out by the one who kept calling her 'Pretty'. The idea of leaving her body unprotected and 'Empty,' basically, was almost as terrifying as the idea of doing nothing.
She licked her lips and tasted her own sweat, and desperately weighed up the risk. She didn't think the creepy guy was gonna try anything yet, maybe if he got her alone, but in front of his boys? Well, it was a gamble, but one she had to take. She might have had her little freak out, but now she had to fight for her life and protect herself, and she needed her friends to help...which, now that she thought about it, wasn't exactly protecting herself, technically, but whatever. No time to quibble over trivial details. She shot another glance at the guys and, upon finding them still talking, closed her eyes and...
...let herself float out of her own physical body, transparent and invisible, glancing back down at her own slumped form. Maybe they'd be idiotic enough to think she had passed out with fear, if they noticed. She hoped so, wasn't that outrageous to think. She slipped through the wall of the locker room building, briefly closing her eyes to make the transition smooth, and found herself instantly stepping outside the building and back into the evening air. She needed to find her friends...preferably not Klaus.
Of course, that proved kind of useless, because Five and Ben was nowhere to be found, Allison was far to surrounded by her new friends to try and talk to without causing a scene, and Luther and Diego were probably in the boy's locker room or something. She ended up rushing back to where she had last seen Klaus and, naturally, found him still slumped beneath the bleacher stands.
"Klaus!" Willa hissed at him, making herself visible as she came to loom over him, "Klaus, for God's sake, wake up!"
Klaus grumbled something and snorted sleepily, rolling over onto his side, very nearly smashing his hand into one of the metal poles of the stands as he did so. She briefly gaped at him in disbelief...how could he be sleeping at a time like this? Never mind the fact that he was on the ground, no pillow, no blanket, no frigging mattress, and it was cold as tonight, but they were on a fucking mission right now. He was supposed to be at least somewhat hopped up on adrenaline, even she got kind of pumped with adrenaline before a mission, and she thought they were stupid and pointless. Sleep inducing was a whole other level of 'Not caring'.
"Klaus! Klaus, come on, please! I need you!"
"Five more minutes, Mum..." he grumbled, snuggling deeper into the grass beneath his cheek.
Willa froze, then, because something was touching her cheek...her actual cheek, her physical bodies cheek. A wave of dread and horror swept over her, so intently that her knees almost buckled. No, that wasn't gonna happen to her, no fucking way in hell was that happening to her.
"Klaus..." she gritted her teeth, "Sorry about this, but I'm desperate..."
She reached out and slapped him. Klaus bolted up right with a squeal like a wounded pig and grabbed at his face, kicking his legs out so widely that if Willa had been physically there, she would have been kicked into next Christmas.
"It burns!" he cried, "What the fuck...!"
"It'll pass, get over it!" she snapped, not having time or the patience to coddle him, not when she could still feel that finger stroking her fucking cheek...She wished she could grab him and shake him, instead she settled putting her hands on her hips and leaning down to glare at him furiously, "Klaus, fucking look at me and listen! This is super serious!"
He blinked up at her, blankly, still all bloodshot and kinda dopey, but the pain seemed to have sobered him up a little bit. He gaped at her, squinting.
"It better be serious, Wills, 'cos that was super not cool, babe..."
"I've been taken hostage!" he stopped and stared at her, and she very nearly demanded to know if he had understood her, but she didn't have time. She needed to tell him and get back to her body, like right now! "Girls locker room, four guys, one at least armed with a pistol and he's also kinda handsy, so you need to get whoever the hell you can get to come and help get me, because I'm tied up and I dunno what else to do, Klaus!"
He blinked, "Girl's locker room..." he said slowly, before he gasped and sat up straighter, a look of horror crossing his face, "Shit, Wills! This is bad!"
She scoffed and threw her hands in there, "Yeah, no kidding!"
She froze again, feeling something touch her leg...
"Wills?" Klaus frowned worriedly, eyeing her anxiously seeing her completely freeze, "What's wrong?"
She swallowed, hard, "Get the others".
And she slammed back into her body, hard. She cringed and groaned slightly in pain, the force of being thrown back so abruptly into her body causing the back of her head to smack painfully hard against the wooden bench behind her, and she could taste blood dripping down her nose. God, it had been ages since she had last bleed using her powers, ages since she had hurt herself by literally throwing herself back into her body like that, but there was no time for the delicate and smooth return that she had learned to adapt to through her training with Reggie.
"Jesus, kid, you having some sort of seizure?"
She cringed and automatically spat out some blood as it dripped into her gasping mouth, and squinted her eyes up to see the creepy guy standing over her, looking wide eyed and startled, kind of freaked out, even. Good, serves him right when he was touching her. She needed to buy some time, so...maybe she could use it to her advantage; sadly, her brain was completely blank right now. She grimaced as a dull pain settled somewhere behind her left eye and she pretended to be trying to clear her head by glancing around. The other three guys were still there, all of them eyeing her warily, one even had their gun out and seemed like he was twitchy enough to have been close to shooting her...Damn. Who the hell hired these idiots?
"You brain dead or something?" the guy in front of her clicked his fingers right in her face, "Hello?"
Willa flinched and looked sharply back up to him, pained, "Stress..." she breathed, glaring up at him rigidly...she hoped her friend hurried up already, because she seriously couldn't wait to see what they did to this one. God, she kind of hoped Five got to him first..., "Stress makes me have seizures. Can't help it".
"Huh. Shame. One of the defective ones..."
She couldn't help throwing him an angry glare at that one...oh, so having an illness that you can't help is defective, is it? God, people like this guy sickened her, seriously did, he'd probably claim her birth was by the devil or some nonsense like that.
"I wouldn't worry about it, honey," he smiled at her, crouching down so they were eye level...Willa curled her legs up tighter to her chest, trying to get away from him, "We're not gonna hurt ya...not unless you give us no choice, anyways. Nah..." he reached out and placed a big paw of a hand on her knee and she barely resisted the urge to kick it right off, and then his melon head, too. His hand dwarfed her knobbly knee easily and his touch felt sickening hot and foul, and she just knew she'd be scrubbing that skin tonight in the shower. He gave her a creepy, slow smirk, "You'll be coming with us. What's one more little girl, 'ey? Boss won't even know about it..."
It took everything inside of her and the knowledge that her friends were coming, not to vomit, right then and there.
"I won't tell anyone," she said quietly, desperately just trying to buy time, play the part now. It was easy to force a couple of tears, she didn't even know for sure if they were even that fake, to be honest, "Please, sir...I won't say anything to anyone, just leave me alone".
"That accent..." he eyed her, and to her horror his gaze seemed to linger somewhere around her mouth. He reached out and touched his finger to her chin, just shy of her bottom lip, and her lip trembled with true mortification then, "Now, where's that from? Not a local..."
She flickered a gaze desperately around the room...the other guys lurking in the shadows shifted uncomfortably, and she got the impression that whatever sick thing this guy had, the rest of them didn't seem to share in it, but neither did any of them seemed to be about to step in and stop him, either. He must have been the ringleader or something. Either way, no security from them...His finger brushed her bottom lip, then, and she cringed and tried to turn her head away from him, but his other hand came up and grabbed her face, pulling it back. If she resisted, he'd snap her neck or he'd break her jaw...She glared furiously back at his watery eyes and imagined what she could do to him, because while she might have initially freaked out, she was angry now. Angry and disgusted, and sick of being touched by a grown bloody man who had zero right to ever go near a child, ever, and Willa wasn't just a little girl.
She wasn't a hero, either, but she wasn't helpless. It occurred to her, then, that she had perhaps overseen that aspect, confused it with the idea of being heroic, but being a hero and being capable wasn't entirely the same thing, and she could hurt people, if she wanted to. She could send people to a different dimension, if she wanted; she could kick and punch hard enough to bruise. Sure, she had zero hope of fighting four grown men, but right now she only needed to fight one...unfortunately, without her hands, she couldn't use her powers, but she did have one trick up her sleeve. She just needed the right moment.
It came barely a second later, when a bright flash of bright blue light filled the room.
"What the fu...?"
Willa reacted before he had a chance to even finish speaking, smashing her head right into his nose...it bloody hurt her, a lot, and she groaned and squeezed her eyes closed as a headache slammed into her like a freight train, but God was it worth it when she heard the man's nose snap and felt blood spray across her already bloody face. He yelled in pain, and it was almost drowned out the other noises in the room. Yells and shouts, and ridicule that barely filtered through her own pain riddled brain right now.
She squinted through the pain, an egg already starting to rise on her forehead as she looked awkwardly around to see Five flashing away from where he'd seemingly just punched one of the guys in the gut, a oddly vicious, gleeful grin stretched across his face as he disappeared in another flash. A throwing knife went flying and did a smooth curve midair, just as it came close to hitting Willa, turning midair to hit home in the upper thigh of another guy, the nervous one, while Five blinked up behind the other one and smashed a pistol he'd seemingly stolen into his face. And then there was Klaus, dashing suddenly up behind Willa, dropping to his knees to start frantically trying to untie her.
"What took your guys so long?" she sighed slightly, relieved.
"No one believed me," he huffed, sounding deeply offended and incredulous by the idea, "Luther scolded me for not taking the mission seriously and Allison was too busy with her little 'Gang,' and Ben was...I don't even know where Benny ended up! Diego and Five were the only ones I could find and who'd actually believe me!"
Another blade came dangerously close to scraping Klaus's cheek, then, but again it curved smoothly away, and judging by the loud squeal that followed, it had hit its target.
"They're loss, I guess," she muttered, shaking her head. She tried pulling on her hands, but they were very firmly still locked together. She frowned, trying to throw him an inpatient look, "What the hell are you doing back there? Cut the damn things already!"
"I, eh...don't have anything to cut with..."
"Oh, my God...Klaus, get Diego! You know, the brother that always has sharp things on his person twenty-four seven!"
"Okay, okay, calm down. No need to get cranky..."
"I swear, Klaus...!"
Klaus hurried away, or so she assumed when she no longer felt his warm breath on the back of her neck. She tried to crane her neck to see what was going on behind her, but saw nothing, but she could hear noises still. Punches and bones cracking, yelps of pain and what sounded like Five laughing at one point...The next second someone was behind her and she had a terrible vision of the creepy man trying to slit her throat, and she couldn't help the slight scream that burst free from her lips...
"It's just me, Wills!" Diego said loudly, but not overly sympathetically, she noted, heart thumping painfully in her throat as she immediately froze. She felt his hands wrap around her own, "Stay still, okay? These ties are close to your skin, I don't wanna cut you..."
"I trust you".
His hands seemed to squeeze her own and she smiled tightly, closing her eyes tightly to try and stop herself from flinching, feeling the cold metal blade touch against her skin, carefully lifting the plastic...He smoothly cut the plastic with one sharp jut upwards with the blade, somehow managing not to slice her skin, and she immediately pulled her hands back around and cradled them to her chest, rubbing at her burning wrists. The ties had left a thin indent in her skin, like red bracelets.
"You've got some blood on you," Five remarked, calmly waltzing over to stand before her, peering down at her with an eyebrow quirked. He wasn't even out of breath and there was a happy glint to his eyes that he only seemed to have when he was punching something, but it dimmed slightly as he took her in, eyes narrowing with concern. He then startled her even more by crouching down, bringing them eye level, frowning at her, "Please tell me that bloods from using your powers, Wills, and not from what those guys did to you".
"Powers," she replied, meeting his eyes firmly.
He nodded, satisfied by that, and held out a hand towards her. She blinked at it, but quickly took it and allowed him to help pull her up. She shivered as it seemed as if her senses finally all came alive again, now that she was safe and not in any danger, and she realised just how bloody freezing the air was in the locker room, the concrete floor and cider block walls doing little to insulate the space against the elements. She hugged herself and rubbed her arms, trying to warm up, when Klaus, of all people, suddenly moved to pull his big, bulky jacket off his skinny frame. He chucked it at her, of course, but she still caught it and blinked at it, and then him, slightly blankly. Even Five and Diego seemed bewildered.
"What?" Klaus shifted slightly, "Am I supposed to just let her turn into an icicle?" he frowned at his brothers pointedly, sniffing, "Who'd actually listen to me in this house if it wasn't for Willy around here?"
"Nice to be appreciated," Willa muttered sarcastically, but she did gratefully pull the jacket on. It was only maybe a little too big for her, but it was warm and cosy, and sure, it smelt gross, like the weed Klaus had been smoking earlier, but she wasn't complaining. She smiled at Klaus, zipping up the jacket all the way up to the top, "Thanks, though, for real..." she stepped forward and threw her arms around him, hugging him tightly...Klaus immediately hugged her back, tightly and she briefly squeezed her eyes closed, before stepping back, arms falling back to grin at him. He grinned widely back, looking almost proud of himself for actually managing to be a 'Hero,' "You're amazing, Klaus".
"Hey," Diego cut in, then, and he gave her a sly, pouty smirk, "Where's my hug?" he opened his arms wide, expectantly, and wiggled his eyebrows at her, "I helped rescue you, too".
"You told Klaus he'd been dropped as a baby and was delusional," Five drawled, fixing Diego with a cool glare, eyes slightly narrowed as he crossed his arms across his chest, "You only came because he agreed to share his stash..."
"That's not true! I believed him, I just..." his eyes darted over to Willa and Klaus, who eyed him with matching dubious eyebrows raised. He deflated, just slightly under their eyes, "...just wanted to make sure. It's Klaus; he's always making up crap".
"That sounds like you really believed him, yeah," Willa rolled her eyes, but...she didn't really care, to be honest, because the main thing was that he had come and helped her, so she shook her head and hugged him, anyway. She couldn't see it, but judging by the scowl Five wore, Diego threw him a smug look of some sort behind her back. She pulled back slightly faster than Klaus and playfully smacked Diego's shoulder...
"Hey, what the hell...?"
"You know why," she stuck her tongue back out at him, and he grinned slightly, not even denying it as he flickered a glance over to Five. She hugged him next, Five, fast and quick, barely more than a pat on the back then anything else, mainly because she was half terrified he might take it as a sign of her attacking him or something, knowing his paranoia, but it still seemed to be enough to make the boy gap at her in slight disbelief and a curious, almost blush, lighten his cheeks. He blinked and cleared his throat, and tried to frown, as if he wasn't ruffled, but she could see he was. It made her smirk and feel suddenly quite pleased with herself for deciding to try her luck. She glanced back to Klaus and Diego, who were grinning knowingly at one another...she ignored it, and her own slightly warmed cheeks, "Okay, so...is that that, then? Mission over?"
"Not quite," Five said, then, seemingly having pulled himself back together, though he didn't seem to be able to meet her eyes now, "There's one left," he did manage to look at her properly, then, and a curious little smirk quirked his lips, "Figured this one was all yours, Wills".
It was the creepy guy. At some point during the fight, Five had managed to gag and tie the guy up, chucking him into one of the murky looking shower cubicles at the back of the locker room. He looked pathetic now, as Willa found herself standing over the man, who peered up at her, one eye already swollen shut, while blood poured from his broken nose, which sat on an even worse angle then before. Five came to stand beside her, looking scary without even trying, to be honest, while Diego took up her left side, absently twirling one of his knives between his fingers, glaring threateningly at the man. Klaus stood slightly behind her, peering over her shoulder...she had no idea what he was supposed to be doing, but figured he was probably emotional support. Kind of like a poodle or something.
"What do you wanna do with him?" Diego asked, his voice cool, dark, still twirling his blade.
"I've got a few ideas if you're interested," Five cast her a sideways glance, eyebrow quirked, still smirking slyly.
"Actually..." Willa said smoothly, her tone even and oddly calm, even though her heart thundered in her eardrums and a rush of adrenaline seemed to be buzzing through her veins, near dizzyingly. She looked down into those watery blue eyes, squinted with pain and swollen shut, and a great sense of peace washed over her, peace with knowing what to do, peace with what she was about to do. She took a breath and released it, easily, and took a small step forward without looking away from those mean eyes, "I know exactly what I'm going to do, boys".
She sensed their curious gazes on her as she moved to crouch down before the man who would have no doubt have enjoyed hurting her, bringing them to eye level. She stared at him silently for a moment, enjoying just a hint of fear that sparkled in those eyes, and cocked her head to the side, curiously.
"You made a big mistake," she told him, voice soft, but still easily heard in the total stillness of the locker room. She just kept her gaze locked on his, "You should have shot me when you had the chance, like your buddy suggested," she leaned slightly forward, balancing easily on the toes of her trainers, and smiled very slightly at him, "It's a mistake I won't be making with you".
She saw a look of confusion wash over those nasty features, before a look of fear and horror filled them, and he began desperately trying to shout at her from around his gag, chocking and spluttering, while he struggled to try and wiggle free from his bounds. Willa merely reached out, slowly, purposely, and calmly pressed her palm over his foreword...he stilled instantly, and his eyes widened, pupils visibly constricted to pin-prinks instantly, and he stared at her, wide eyed and terrified.
"You're never going to be a danger to another girl, ever again".
And with just a little nudge with her powers, her expression hardening with focus, his eyes glazed over and his body seized up, before...utterly going limp. His eyes snapped shut and he collapsed, held up only by the walls of the shower cubicle that surrounded him and the ropes. Willa released a small, shaky breath and swallowed. Slowly, she rose and, almost nervously, turned around to face the boys. Five looked shocked and impressed, while Diego seemed a little paler, frowning with a vaguely conflicted expression, while Klaus simply looked a little puzzled, eyeing the guy behind her back warily.
"Did you...kill him?" Diego asked hesitantly.
"His hearts still beating," Willa said, now feeling way less confident than she had before. She wrapped her arms around her middle and shifted slightly, "I sent his consciousness to the Astral plain, though, so...technically, he's brain-dead, unless I chose to bring him back".
"That was...impressive," Five remarked, and he did seem rather amazed, lips curling into a small smile as he looked at her with a light in his eyes she'd never seen before. It made her flush from the roots of her hair to her toes, and she desperately hoped that the locker-room was gloomy enough to conceal it.
"No kidding," Klaus blinked, and laughed slightly awkwardly, suddenly throwing an arm around her shoulders, pulling her in for a one-sided, lazy sort of hug, "Didn't know you could do that, Wills..."
"Didn't think you had that sort of ruthlessness in you, myself," Diego added, some of his concerned frown melting away, and he seemed to be eyeing her thoughtfully.
Willa lifted her chin proudly, "Only if it's deserved".
"Noted".
"We probably should round up the others," Five cut in, then, though he was still regarding Willa with that strange sort of glint in his eyes, looking far more relaxed than she had seen him before. He was even still smiling, just slightly, "Let them know the missions over..."
"What about him?" Klaus jerked his head back towards the man in the cubicle.
"Leave him," he said instantly, smirking. He caught her gaze again and his expression softened, just slightly, "Wills right. He got what he deserved".
...
"Hey...Klaus," Willa eyed him slightly apprehensively, part of herself wondering if she was being a total idiot for even asking, part of her wondering if asking Klaus was even a good idea, but...damn it, she was curious and a little part of herself craved to know, like it was somehow so important to her...she just didn't know why.
"Hmm?" Klaus didn't even open his eyes, head lolled up against the edge of his window, somehow seemingly utterly unbothered by the noisy hum of the plane engines.
She checked around them again, but everyone else was sleeping, even Five was passed out, mouth hanging open unattractively and drooling slightly. She'd have to remember that for future blackmail material. It seemed that she and Klaus were the only ones still awake, Luther and Allison might be still awake, but if they were, they were having their own little moment together on the opposite end of the plane, which she tried not to think about, while Ben and Diego were sleeping on each other's shoulders, slumped down in their seats. She looked back to Klaus, across from her, and leaned forward slightly between them, lowering her voice to a whisper.
"When you told Five I'd been taken hostage, what he say? I mean, Diego only came 'cause you agreed to share your...treats with him, and Luther didn't even believe you..."
"Oh, yeah," he didn't even bother to still crack an eye open, luckily keeping his own voice low, his eyebrows arching, "Fivey was actually the only one who didn't question it, just demanded to know where".
For some reason, that made Willa smile and glance back over to Five, still drooling onto his own shoulder, while a book lay open in his lap, threatening to tip onto the floor with the next light jostle of turbulence. A warm feeling spread through her, tingling her very fingertips and toes, and she settled back against her seat, grinning stupidly to herself as she tried to pull the collar of her borrowed jacket up to conceal it, just in case anyone should look over. Somehow...she wasn't surprised, but very, very happy, to learn that. And somehow, a part of her treasured it, secretly, deeply.
Five wasn't nearly as heartless as he might imagine himself to be, evidently.
Is it supper obvious that I'm not American? Bet it is, if you hadn't picked up on that already...I'm Australian, our version of football is a really big deal here, but not the same as in the USA, from my own understanding from watching teen shows and movies, and we don't really go in for cheer leading, but when I saw Willa's actress in a cheerleader outfit, this chapter popped into my head...or more accurately Five's reaction did. Aww, they're all growing up, those damn hormones are running amuck, big time! And even little Fivey isn't immune to those big boy feelings.
So, I was thinking about how Klaus came across drugs, and I figured that alcohol was probably his first starting point, but I also felt like this chapter made sense for Klaus to have stumbled across someone who would have sold him weed. That gateway drug swiftly turns into harder stuff, but this is kind of the start. I'm not condoning drug use at all, by the way, I'm just trying to keep to Klaus's canon and trying to make it semi-realistic, and we know that Klaus was experimenting with drugs when he was a really young kid, we literally see him rolling a joint at the breakfast table when his thirteen, so...just keeping with that.
Little Willa and Five experiencing their first little brush with crushing. Aww! Also, we get to see a darker side to Willa in this chapter, she's not such an innocent little girl, she's got blood on her hands and a willingness to take a life, if and when, she sees it as okay. I kind of see her as a very morally grey character, out rightly believing that killing isn't okay, but if you harm others or her? That's kind of giving her free reign to give it right back, a teaching that is one-hundred percent developed thanks to old Reggie's influence, of course.
Fun fact, I wrote this chapter way back in June of 2024 when I was stuck in my bedroom for seven days with my second batch of covid.
Quick question, should I have put a trigger warning on this chapter? I was tempted to and still considering it, but do they give away too much plot? Anyway, tell me what you thought, please review :)
