"𝑊𝑖𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑙𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑟, 𝑛𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑠."
—𝑆𝑜𝑝ℎ𝑜𝑐𝑙𝑒𝑠

𝒩.

"𝐇𝐄𝐘, 𝐖𝐀𝐊𝐄 𝐔𝐏!"

"Hm?" Natalia slowly blinked her eyes open, squinting at the sudden light as she yawned. "Wha . . ."

"Come on." Diego tugged at the sleeve of her light blue pyjamas as he sat on the edge of her bed. "Get up."

"Why?" she whined as she rubbed her eyes, though she slowly heeded as she sat up. Her eyes moved past Diego's face and to her clock, and she grumbled, "There's still twenty minutes until breakfast."

"I know," he said, adjusting his uniform blazer. "But I wanted to study for the chem test."

"You? Study?" she scoffed, and she held back her laugh only to spare him. "Since when?"

"If I don't get a passing grade on this test, my mark is gonna drop to below fifty, and Pogo is already on my ass about physics," Diego whined as she slipped off her bed and grabbed her chemistry notebook before sitting down next to him. "God knows what Dad'll say if my average drops below fifty."

Natalia let out a small giggle. "Yeah, yeah, let's study. First, let's go over definitions: What's enthalpy?"

He squinted his eyes, mouthing the word as he thought before nodding. "Enthalpy is heat released and absorbed at a constant pressure with the potential to provide heat, and it's used to predict reaction characteristics."

"Mhm." She nodded. "If delta H is positive, what kind of reaction is it?"

"Endothermic."

She nodded again before glancing down at her notebook. "What's Hess's law?"

"Well, Hess's law . . ." Diego gave a small sigh as he looked up at the ceiling before he shrugged. "No clue."

"Hess's law is the enthalpy or heat change accompanying a chemical reaction, which is independent of its pathway between its initial and final states," she told him, grinning as he let out a small groan.

"I'm gonna fail, Nat."

"You are not," she reassured him as she rolled her eyes. "You answered all the questions right so far—other than this one, obviously."

Diego, however, continued to be stubborn as he drawled, "I'm gonna fail."

"Fine," she sighed as she got off of her bed, putting her notebook on her desk before walking to her dresser and opening it. "Fail then."

"Nat," he groaned as she pulled out her uniform. "I'm gonna fail!"

"What do you want me to do?" she laughed. "I can't write the test for you. Now get out, I have to change."

"I'll be waiting right outside the door," he mumbled as he slipped off the bed and left the room.

Natalia locked the door before unbuttoning her pyjama shirt and slipping her pants off, making sure to fold them neatly before putting them in her dresser.

She then grabbed the white button-up shirt and quickly put it on before slipping on the red-and-grey plaid dress, flattening the skirt. It was February, meaning it was cold, and so she put on the sweater vest over top for extra warmth.

Now that she was fully covered, she decided to let Diego in; he had begun to tap against the door to remind her of his presence.

"You know you're annoying, right?" she sighed as she opened the door, putting an end to his tapping.

"But you still love me, don't you?" Diego teased as he came in, sitting on the edge of her bed once more as she began to pull the knee-high socks on.

She tilted her head downwards to focus her gaze on her socks to try and hide the blush that had come onto her face. "You're still annoying though."

"Uh-huh," he said in amusement, pulling out one of his throwing knives from the little leg holster he kept attached to his thigh and beginning to play with it, "sure."

Natalia sighed as she bent down and put her shoes on. 

"Here." He tossed her her tie as soon as she had finished tying the laces of her shoes, causing her to roll her eyes.

"Thanks," she muttered before tucking it under her collar and beginning to tie it. "What's potential energy?"

Diego let out a small groan as he laid down on her bed. "Potential energy results from condition, position, or composition; it's energy associated with forces of attraction or repulsion between objects."

She raised her eyebrows as she stuck the finished tie underneath her dress. "Wow, you actually studied, huh?" 

"I told you," he muttered as he put his knife back into the holster, "I don't wanna fail that class."

"Well, I'm sure you'll do just fine," she reassured him as she grabbed her blazer and shrugged it on.

"Will I?" he sighed as she sat down at her vanity and began to brush her dark hair. "Will I really?"

"Yeah," she laughed. "I mean, what did you get on your last test?"

"Somewhere around forty."

Natalia paused before putting her hairbrush down and slowly nodding with squinted eyes. "I'm . . . sure you'll do fine."

Diego only groaned in response.

She grabbed her small makeup bag, glancing over at the clock to see that they still had about ten minutes until they would be called down for breakfast.

As she grabbed the foundation that perfectly matched her fair skin, she reassured him, "Diego, you will be fine."

Diego grabbed the chair from her desk and brought it next to her, squinting his eyes as he sat down and watched her brush the foundation onto her skin.

"What's the point of that gunk, anyway?" he questioned with a crinkled nose. "You look the same."

"Shut up," she giggled, swiping the brush at him so that a bit of the foundation came onto his cheek.

"Hey!" he complained as he grabbed a tissue from the vanity and wiped the makeup off. "That's gross!"

She ignored him as she put her foundation away and grabbed her mascara. "What's the heat of vaporization?"

"The heat needed to change liquid to vapour," he answered dismissively with a shrug as he threw the tissue into her small garbage bin. "That's easy."

"Well, I'll give you a harder one then," she murmured, though she kept her focus on the eyelashes that she was brushing upwards.

"No, that's not what I—"

"What's a path-dependent function?"

"Dammit," he muttered, his nose wrinkling. "Uh . . . a function that depends on a path."

"I wish it were that easy," she laughed, shaking her head as she closed the mascara tube. "Heat and work are not state functions, so their values depend on the path followed when a system undergoes change."

"Yeah, so" —he shrugged— "what I said."

"Sure." She patted him on the shoulder before quickly finishing the rest of her light makeup.

The high-pitched ring of a bell soon floated up into her room, and the two of them immediately set off out of the room and towards the staircase. Their siblings were only a few steps ahead of them. 

The seven kids stood in front of their chairs at the dining table, gazing down at the pre-made plates of their breakfast as they waited for their father.

Their wait was short-lived; Sir Reginald Hargreeves arrived no more than a minute later, dressed in a classy suit as usual, and with his gold monocle resting glamorously in front of his left eye.

"Sit!" he ordered, and they quickly heeded.

The only presence of sound that rang through the room was the scraping of forks and knives; one of the two rules that were enforced during mealtimes—no talking. Rule number two was that they had to finish their food, which was an easier one to follow.

Natalia glanced over to Diego, whose spot was to her left, as she forked a strawberry into her mouth. Seeing what he was doing, she rolled her eyes. 

As usual, while he chewed on his breakfast, his right hand was otherwise occupied as it dug the blade of the butterknife into the arm of the chair. From being chiselled so many times in the past, the arm was already engraved with past carvings, and Natalia worried there was going to be a gaping hole soon; that had happened to the previous four chairs.

She ignored him and focused on the scrambled eggs that she had moved onto, though her eyes quickly turned to watch as Luther and Allison exchanged flirty glances. Natalia had to suppress a giggle as she looked back down at her food.

After her plate was clean and Reginald dismissed the seven of them, Natalia quickly grabbed her books and joined the rest of the siblings in heading to their first class of the day—the dreaded chemistry.

They crossed into the training complex and went to the classroom, where they all took their places.

The desks were lined up in two rows of four, and they were assigned their seat by number. Unfortunately for Natalia, that meant that Diego was not only in a different row than her but also on the other end. Though she still got to sit near Vanya, Klaus, and Allison, so those were pluses.

"Hey, Nutella," Klaus whispered as he turned around to face her, a small grin on his face. "Did you study for this test?"

"Of course I did," she whispered back. "Did y—never mind, I know the answer."

"I'm horrified that you'd even consider for a moment that I studied," Klaus responded with a wrinkled nose, shuddering as he turned to face the front.

Natalia rolled her eyes before turning to Vanya and raising her eyebrows. "I'm assuming you studied?"

Vanya gave her a reassuring nod. "I was up until two."

Natalia frowned as she noticed the worry that was practically radiating from the girl next to her, and, quietly, she said, "You don't have to be worried, Vanny, I know you'll do great."

Vanya smiled. "Thanks, Lia."

"All right, darlings," Grace spoke as she entered the room, giving them all an endearing smile as their chatter came to an end. "I hope you've all studied well" —she ignored Klaus's snort— "and I trust that all of you will perform wonderfully." She ignored Klaus's second snort as she walked to her desk, which was in the back of the classroom, and picked up a stack of papers. "You'll begin your test now, and you have seventy minutes to complete it."

Natalia licked her lips, giving a small sigh as she nervously tapped her foot against the ground and waited. She gave a murmur of thanks to Grace after she handed her the test, and quickly set her pencil to work.

She narrowed her eyes at the first question ('What is a path-dependent function?') and chewed on her lip for a moment before scribbling down her answer.

She twirled the pencil between her fingers as she moved on to the next question, though, first, she quickly glanced at Vanya, frowning when she saw the baffled look on her face as she stared at the first question.

Natalia peeped over to Grace, who was now answering a question that Allison was asking, and she quickly nudged Vanya's foot with her own.

Puzzled, Vanya looked up at Natalia with furrowed eyebrows.

Keeping her eyes on Grace, Natalia shifted her paper over so Vanya could see, and the other girl grinned before quickly copying the answer down.

Just in time, Natalia shifted her paper back as Grace straightened up and began to pace the room once more.

Before Natalia could move on to the next question, however, an alarm sounded, and the room was suddenly encased by a flashing red light.

"Oh, our test has been interrupted by a mission," Grace sighed, placing her hands on her hips. "We'll continue it tomorrow; I'll fix the first few questions accordingly. Now, go, and be safe!"

Natalia quickly joined the other kids—save for Vanya—in heading back towards their rooms, and she locked her door as soon as she entered her bedroom.

Moving as swiftly as she could, she opened her dresser doors and grabbed her mission suit—a tight, black suit that was lined in white—and quickly exchanged her school uniform for that.

She velcroed the collar and clicked the buckle closed before grabbing her mask—a black domino mask with white patches over the eyes—and put it on as she left her room, and was immediately joined by Diego.

"Hey," he greeted with a grin as the two of them began to head toward the main foyer. "Thank God we have a mission. That test was kicking my ass."

"You're happy that people are in danger because you were doing bad on a test?" Natalia questioned with raised eyebrows as they rushed down the stairs.

Diego shrugged. "Yeah."

"You idiot," she chided as she slapped his arm, causing his grin to broaden. "Now, hurry up, everyone's waiting!"

Only ten minutes later did they find themselves in the location that was currently experiencing an emergency—a department store that was in the middle of being robbed.

All of the lights were turned off, and the only source they had was the sunlight that streamed in through the windows, though much of it was filtered by the clouds that drifted through the February sky.

"All right," Luther breathed out, glancing around them to make sure no robber was near, "me and Allison, Diego and Ben, Natalia and Klaus. Go!"

Natalia gestured for Klaus to follow her as she headed towards the back of the store, and she heard his footsteps trail close behind her.

The two of them stopped as they spotted two of the robbers, and they quickly crouched behind a rack that was full of dresses. They watched as the two men, who stood at a little over six feet, peered around the room, clearly having heard some kind of disturbance.

"Ready?" Klaus whispered as he glanced at Natalia, who nodded.

The two of them held a gun in their hands, though Natalia didn't really care as she sprung towards them.

She went to the one on the left as Klaus took the one on the right, and she grinned as she watched the man tighten his grip on his gun.

Immediately, she grabbed the barrel of the gun before twisting it out of his hands, and she threw it to the side, not bothering to look as she heard it clatter onto the ground.

She ducked as the robber swung his fist at her, and instantly responded with a roundhouse kick to the cheek, and he stumbled back from the force.

He quickly recovered, and he jumped toward her, throwing as many punches in her direction as possible. She dodged all of them, hardly putting any thought to it as her body shifted from side to side.

Natalia swiftly backed up and raised her hands in front of her. She felt the familiar tingle of energy run through her arms and to her hands before a shot of magenta blasted out. The energy hit the man in the stomach, and the intensity caused him to stumble back and double over to clutch at his stomach.

As soon as he straightened up, she lunged toward him, elbowing his stomach and causing him to double over once more.

Taking her chance, she took a slight step back before doing a spinning kick, her foot meeting his cheek and causing him to fall to the ground.

She examined him for a second as she caught her breath, and felt satisfaction creep up on her as her eyes roamed over the blood that trailed over his cheek.

"Bam!" Klaus yelled. "Take that, you bitch!"

Natalia looked over to see that the man Klaus had fought was now also on the ground, unconscious.

Klaus grinned at her as he gave her a thumbs-up and prodded the man's limp leg with his foot. "We're so good at this."

𝒩.

Natalia sighed as she sat down at her desk and flipped her chemistry textbook open. 

One glance at the clock told her that it was a few minutes past eight, meaning she still had plenty of time to study for the chemistry test that had been moved to the next day.

She had only done a few practice questions when she heard a series of knocks present themselves at the door. Without bothering to look away from the textbook she was flipping through, she used her free hand to open the door with her telekinesis, though she could see the magenta shrouding the door from the corner of her eye as she did so.

Three presences came in from the doorway—Diego, Klaus, and Ben—all with their chemistry textbooks and notebooks in hand.

"We need help," Diego sighed, lifting up his textbook for her to see. "Klaus is too stupid to answer my questions, and he bothers Ben too much for Ben to answer my questions."

Natalia wrinkled her nose as she looked over to Klaus, who was giving her a grin. "Then why did you bring him?"

Ben scoffed as he playfully punched Klaus's arm and pointed out, "It's not like we can get rid of him. It's Klaus."

"Rude," Klaus huffed.

"You've got a point there," she sighed before gesturing for them to sit. "Okay. Let's study then."

The three boys situated themselves at the edge of her bed, and she turned around to face them.

"What's . . ." Natalia sighed as she leaned back in her chair, "the first law of thermodynamics?"

"The total energy is shared between heat and work," Ben answered.

As Natalia nodded in confirmation, Klaus laid back against the bed and whined, "Why are there laws?"

"They're not really laws," Natalia replied with squinted eyes as she leaned back in her chair. "They're kind of just . . . rules."

"That's just a synonym for law," Diego pointed out, a grin spreading on his face as she leaned over and smacked his arm.

"That's not what's important, anyway," Natalia sighed. "Moving on. Liquid form has an enthalpy of zero whereas the gas phase has an enthalpy of . . . ?"

"We have to memorize that?" questioned Ben with a wrinkled nose.

Natalia gave a small shrug as she answered, "It was on the review sheet, so probably."

"Well, Ben obviously doesn't know, I don't know, and Klaus definitely doesn't know," Diego sighed as he gestured towards the three of them, "so, what's the answer?"

"Hey!" Klaus protested as he turned to him and folded his arms. "Who told you that I didn't know?"

"Do you know the answer?" Ben questioned dubiously, his eyebrows raised.

"Well, no," Klaus admitted, "but I could've!"

"Keyword being 'could've,'" Diego scoffed as he rolled his eyes. He turned his attention back to Natalia, who had been watching them with an amused smile and nodded toward her. "Tell us."

"Well, we usually use the one for bromine," she began, "and that number is thirty-point-nine-one kilojoules per mol."

"It's a decimal?" Ben asked incredulously, letting out a small groan as he laid on his back and rubbed his eyes. "You know what, I think I'd rather just fail."

"If Ben's given up, then it's hopeless," Diego sighed.

"Wha—" Natalia shook her head, shutting her eyes in frustration. She gave a short exhale as she told them, "You'll be fine, as long as you study. Besides, this is just one thing!"

"This is just the definitions and stuff," Diego pointed out with a frown, "the actual math part is impossible."

"I thought you studied?" Natalia pointed out as she folded her arms.

"I did," he reassured her, "but this shit is just hard."

"It's hard for me too!" she exclaimed. "I'm still trying!"

"Yeah, but you're . . . you," Klaus replied with a wrinkled nose. "You like all this science stuff. Isn't chem your favourite? No wonder you're not our sister."

While all the others had been adopted at birth, the case for Natalia was a little . . . different. 

Her parents had refused when Reginald first came to their door, asking for Natalia when she was a newborn. After a few recurring incidents of her being unable to control her—what she now knew to be—power of psionic energy manipulation, however, her parents decided that it was long past the time to send her to the man who had offered to take her. 

And while all seven of these teens were siblings, Natalia couldn't say the same; her biological parents had never signed the rights to Reginald, instead just dashing out of the home as fast as they could, and never answering their calls.

So instead, Natalia remained Natalia Kim, or Number Eight. Though she had no idea how this related to anything Klaus said. 

"Klaus, that's not an inherited thing—and you guys aren't even blood-related." Natalia glared at him, only earning a blown kiss in return. She rolled her eyes in amusement before looking toward the other two boys. "What is energy?"

"The capacity to do work," Diego answered lazily. "Something Klaus isn't capable of."

"What did I ever do to you?" Klaus scoffed as he looked at Diego and punched his arm. "It's not like I told Natalia that you—"

"Shut up!" Diego exclaimed, immediately pushing Klaus off of the bed.

"Ow," Klaus grumbled, rubbing the side of his head as he got to his feet.

"What?" Natalia's eyebrows furrowed, and she turned to him. "Tell me what?"

"That Klaus is an idiot," he reassured her, throwing a glare at the boy who was clambering back onto the bed.

"I'm pretty sure that isn't it," Ben remarked, then put his hands up in surrender as Diego turned his glare to him. "Just sayin'."

"It's nothing," he said quickly to Natalia, whose eyes were narrowed at him, "don't worry about it."

"Okay . . ." Natalia said slowly, though she most definitely didn't believe him, "let's get back to chemistry then."

"No," Klaus whined.

"You don't have to stay here," Ben pointed out with a small groan. "You can leave!"

"No," Klaus whined once again.

"Klaus, have you even read the chapter?" Diego questioned with raised eyebrows.

"No," Klaus mumbled. "I'll fail. Whatever. Don't care."

"Dad's gonna yell at you," Ben told him with a small frown.

Klaus waved a dismissive hand through the air. "What's new?"