Word count: 4485

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐍𝐄𝐗𝐓 𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐄 months progressed in a normal fashion. 

Elizabeth would study with/tutor her fellow students, spend time training, try to tolerate Reginald's taunts and insults without bursting into tears, and use whatever free time she had left to sneak into the other teens' rooms and talk.

Over all this time, she had become closest to Five and Diego.

Five, his room being just next to hers, was always the first to say good morning and the last to say good night. 

Most nights, after everyone fell asleep, he would teleport into her room, and the two of them would chat all night until the morning sun gleamed through the windows.

During these times, Elizabeth could feel an increasing amount of butterflies in her stomach whenever their hands came into contact, or whenever their eyes gazed at each other for more than a second. 

She had never had a crush before, what with her not knowing anyone before she arrived here, but she knew that that was what was happening. And she wasn't too sure how she felt about it, but what could she do? 

The situation with Diego, on the other hand, was completely different. She could never see him as anything past a brother, which was already hard enough for her; it was strange to be raised as an only child with careless parents for nearly fourteen years before getting thrown into a new family with a peculiar father, robot mother, six interesting and quite self-satisfied siblings, a wonderfully ordinary sister who was far more humble and loving than the others, and a monkey that could talk.

With Diego, they were purely just best friends. Along with Grace, she helped him get over his stutter, which was practically gone by the time they reached the age of fifteen. It only ever occurred when he was nervous or angry, which Elizabeth tried to keep to a minimum (although it was difficult whenever Luther was around).

Despite those two boys being her closest friends, Elizabeth was still quite close to the others. She would regularly go to their rooms to hang out and chat, passing it off as studying whenever questioned by a person in authority.

Around July, Reginald had deemed Elizabeth more than ready to join the group in going out on missions. So, whenever the alarm shrieked and flashed red, she would put on the black suit that was lined in white, and the domino mask with the creepy, white patches for eyes, and create a portal for everyone to jump through.

One thing that Elizabeth had made routine after every mission, was to head straight towards Vanya's room right after and tell her word-for-word everything that had happened. She felt bad that the girl missed out on the action, and always enjoyed the giggles and gasps of shock she'd receive while telling the story.

Now, in the middle of a cold November, the familiar alarm echoed through the halls, and red shone against the light walls. Reginald's shouts echoed, telling them to hurry and get ready.

Elizabeth, who was studying in Vanya's room, got up from the bed and rushed out, giving a smile to Vanya as the other girl wished her luck. She ran to her room and pulled out the suit from her closet, quickly changing from her uniform to that.

It was made of a spandex-like material and was quite fitting to her body. The same umbrella that was tattooed onto her wrist was stitched onto the left breast of her suit, and a velcro kept the collar together. She buckled the black belt before putting the mask on and hurried down to join the rest of the students in the main foyer.

When everyone was there and ready to go, Reginald informed Elizabeth of the location, telling them that there was a bank robbery. It wasn't the first time they had to go to stop a bank robbery, and it sure wasn't going to be the last.

Keeping the location clear in her mind, Elizabeth pushed her hands in front of her, and gold rushed out as a portal was produced.

They all jumped through, arriving inside a clean, nicely structured bank, where people were cowering on the floor.

There seemed to be about twenty innocent people who had just come at an unfortunate time, and they were scattered across the room, pressed up against the back of the desks.

Six tall, muscular men seemed to be the culprits of the crime, judging by the fact that they carried large guns in their hands, and that they were the only ones who were still on their feet. They wore classic robber outfits: all black clothes, along with a black ski mask that covered everything except for their eyes and mouths.

A couple of them were threatening the bank tellers while the others made sure that the hostages stayed in line, using their guns as threats as they muttered to them to stay down.

The Umbrella Academy immediately set off to work, each of them heading towards a different robber.

Elizabeth created a portal and jumped through it, coming out of one just behind a robber who had been threatening a hostage at the back of the room. She kicked him down, forcing him to fall forward to his knees with a groan of agony.

The man quickly got up, his gun clutched tightly in his right hand. Slightly shaking, he lifted the end towards her and locked his finger around the trigger, his eyes silently warning her that he wasn't afraid to use the gun.

Elizabeth blasted him with energy, although she didn't make the intensity too high. He fell backward onto his bottom, and soon, a gunshot rang through the air as he quickly pulled the trigger.

Swiftly, Elizabeth moved her hands in opposite directions and made a shield just as the bullet hit it. The bullet hit the shield, causing it to ripple slightly before the shell fell to the ground.

The man's eyes widened as he took notice that she hadn't been hit by the bullet at all, and using this moment of surprise to her advantage, Elizabeth quickly kicked the gun out of his hand. With a loud clatter, the gun landed a few feet away from him, and he let out a small shout.

Five was by her side in an instant, seeming to be worried after hearing the loud gunshot. "You good?"

"I'm fine," she reassured him with a smile before sending a concussive blast to the man who was watching in fright, knocking him so far back that he hit the wall and slid down to the floor, unconscious.

She turned around to see that most of the others were done with their own robbers, them all knocked unconscious, or even dead, on the ground. Although, it seemed that Diego was still having fun, teasingly tossing one knife after the other, each one closer to the pinned man's body than the last as he let out small squeals of fright.

Klaus walked up next to her with a wide grin, his knuckles slightly bloody but the rest of him being otherwise okay. His eyes shifted from one dead robber to the next, each frightened hostage's face to the other.

"That was . . ." one of the hostages gasped as his eyes frantically shifted over the teenagers, "insane."

Klaus put his hands on his hips and gave a proud nod. "You call it insane, we call it Thursday."

Elizabeth turned to him with furrowed eyebrows, now slightly concerned about his memory. "Klaus, you know that it's Monday, right?"

He looked towards her, a horrified expression upon his face. "It's Monday?!"

—☾—

The next day, Five and Elizabeth were making their way up the stairs to their classroom, math textbooks in hand. They arrived a couple of minutes before class started, taking their seats at the left end of the second row.

Once everyone was settled, Grace gave them a smile and began once the noise had been hushed, "Now, today, we will begin with a lesson on factor and remainder theorem."

She began to explain as she wrote the key points at the top of the chalkboard, "Remainder theorem is when a polynomial function, F of X, is divided by J-X-minus-K, the remainder will be F multiplied-by-K-divided-by-J. Therefore, if J is equal to one and we are dividing F of X by X-minus-K, then the remainder will be F of K."

Grace turned to face the students, watching as they all rushed to write everything down into their notebooks, their eyes swivelling quickly between the paper and the board.

Once they were all finished, Grace nodded and continued, "So, I'll do an example first." She turned back to the board, writing the question down.

Determine the remainder when f(x) = 2x² + 4x³ - 2x + 1 is divided by (x-3)

f(3) = 4(3)³ + 2(3)² - 2(3) + 1
= 4(27) + 2(9) - 6 + 1
= 121

After the students finished writing everything down, she continued, "Now, factor theorem is a polynomial function that has a factor of X-minus-A if F of A equals zero. That is, if an expression divides evenly into the polynomial, which is shown by a remainder of zero, then we know that the divisor is a factor of the polynomial. Any questions so far?"

Everyone shook their heads in response as they finished writing, and the silence only added to their answer.

"Great! I will write another example."

Is (2x-1) a factor of f(x) = 4x³ + x - 1?

f(1/2) = 4(1/2) ³ + (1/2) - 1
= 4(1/8) + (1/2) - 1
= (1/2) + (1/2) - 1
= 0

"Now, can someone tell me if it is a factor?" Grace questioned as she turned back to them.

Allison raised a hand. "Yeah, it is."

"Great job! Tomorrow, we'll be looking into how to find a factor. For now, I'm going to hand everyone a worksheet on remainder and factor theorem, and you may work in pairs to complete it. No more than two people per group!" 

Grace began to deliver thin pieces of paper to each person, the paper riddled with equations and questions.

Five immediately turned to Elizabeth as chatter filled the air, leaning forward towards her. He gave her a big smile that revealed his dimples, which, while it usually gave her butterflies, caused her to roll her eyes. "Wanna be my partner?"

Her expression was nothing but suspicious as she tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. "Because I'm good at math?"

"No," he said innocently with a small shrug, "because you're my best friend."

She raised her eyebrows.

"And because you're good at math," he admitted after a few moments, a grin spreading onto his face. "Both those things. But especially the first thing."

Elizabeth laughed as she conceded with a small nod, "Fine."

As Five pushed his desk so that it was right next to hers, Diego came up behind her, his paper and pencil in hand. "Hey, Goldie, wanna be partners?"

"Too late, she's already my partner." Five looked up towards him, a small smirk on his face as he gave Diego a shrug. "Seems like our rankings aren't the only thing you're Number Two in."

Diego glowered, "You're Number Five."

"Not in this situation." Five's smirk enlarged as he tilted his chin higher towards the other boy and gave a nonchalant shrug. "Right now, I'm Number One."

Diego rolled his eyes. "Oh, fuck off."

"Language, Diego!" Grace called out as she paused from erasing the board, sending him a stern look before continuing to wipe the chalk off with a rag.

"Sorry, Mom!" Diego gave her a small smile before turning back to the other two, his smile transforming into a glare towards Five.

"Sorry, Eggo." Elizabeth gave him a sympathetic smile and patted him on the arm before promising, "I'll be your partner next time."

"No, you won't," Five muttered under his breath as Diego went back to his own desk, although Elizabeth couldn't quite hear him clearly.

"What was that?" she asked as she turned towards him, her eyebrows raised.

"Nothing." He gave her a sweet smile before looking down at the page in front of him and tapping it with the end of his pencil. "Let's start. What's the answer to the first one?"

Elizabeth scrunched her face as she looked towards him. "Why don't you answer the first one?"

"Because I know you can solve it in your head in, like, one second," he replied as he looked up at her, his eyebrows raising.

"Where did you hear that from?" she asked innocently as she tilted her head.

"I've seen you do it!"

"Psh," she scoffed, waving a hand of dismissal through the air as she shook her head. "That wasn't me."

"Then who was it?" Five asked with an eyebrow quirked, obviously not believing her terrible lie in the least. "Because whoever it was sure looked a lot like you."

"Uh . . ." Elizabeth thought for a moment, squinting her eyes before she gave him a small shrug. "My clone."

His eyebrows raised, although he continued to play along. "And where is that clone now?"

She pursed her lips for a moment before deciding, "Dead."

"Well, if it's your clone, that means it can do the exact same things as you, including math," he pointed out, gesturing down towards the unanswered questions.

"You know what" —Elizabeth jokingly began to get up from her seat, exaggerating her movements— "maybe I will go with Di—"

"Fine, fine," Five sighed as he tugged on the sleeve of her blazer, causing her to take her seat once more. "I'll do it."

"Aw, you don't have to." She dropped the warm smile she had put on before pointing to the paper. "No, I'm lying. You have to."

Five scowled at her before he turned to the questions, his mouth formed into a small pout. "Okay, do this . . . and then exponent . . . and then do that . . . subtract that . . ." he began to mumble to himself as he dragged his pencil across the paper.

Elizabeth watched in adoration; he was so cute when he was concentrated. The way he furrowed his eyebrows and chewed on his lower lip while in thought was more than enough to send butterflies soaring through her stomach.

She snapped out of the small trance as he looked up at her and pointed toward his answer.

"There." He smacked the final answer with the end of his pencil as a grin came onto his face. "The answer is fifteen."

"Sixteen," she corrected.

"What?" He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion as he looked back to his solution, his eyes quickly scanning over each step as he tried to search for the mistake. "How?"

"You just calculated wrong." She gave a small shrug before she picked up her pencil and then rewrote the solution onto her page, fixing his mistake.

"Huh?" Five shifted over towards her, close enough that their shoulders were touching, immediately sending more butterflies into her stomach. His eyes glanced towards her face before he looked back at the page and shook his head. "I don't get it. You just did the same thing that I did, except you made the answer sixteen."

Ignoring the butterflies and her quickened heart rate, she giggled and questioned him, "Five, what is thirty minus fourteen?"

"Sixteen, duh."

"And what math do you have to do to find the remainder?"

"Thirty minus fourte—oh."

"Mhm."

He grinned as he leaned back to his original position. "Pretend that was my first answer."

"Will do," she chuckled, already missing the warmth he had been providing her. "Next question."

"It's your turn," Five pointed out as he jabbed his finger down at the question on the paper.

"Right." She nodded before looking down at the question. She looked back up at him only a moment later, leaning back in her chair. "The answer is forty-two. Your turn."

"Oh, that's not fair." He pouted as he looked towards the third question and let out an exhale. "Fine. Give me a million seconds to do this."

"It's going to take you eleven and a half days to solve one problem?" 

"How did you—never mind," he sighed. "Yes. It will."

"Okay." She nodded, folding her arms. "I'll wait."

Another two minutes of her gazing at him in affection passed and he was finished.

"Seven."

"Yeah, good job." Elizabeth nodded before glancing at the next question. "The fourth is twenty-five. Your turn."

"God, you're so annoying," Five grumbled as he turned towards his page. He paused and looked back up at her, his eyes narrowed. "Hey, I have a question."

She turned her eyes away from the page and to him as she raised her eyebrows. "Yeah?"

"When you write your math tests, do you write only the answer because you can just calculate it in your head?"

"No," she answered as she shook her head, "I do the whole thing. I'm not risking the chance of losing marks."

"Then why don't you do that now?" Five complained, his shoulders slumping down.

"Because if I do that, it'll take longer to finish," she told him as she shrugged.

A grin spread onto his face as he leaned forward and lifted his eyebrows. "You know what would make it super short?"

"I'm not answering all of them for you."

"Dammit." He muttered the instructions to himself as he finished the problem and answered, "Eighteen." Five looked up at her but narrowed his eyes as he saw something behind her, and he let out a soft groan, "Oh, fucking hell."

"What?" Elizabeth furrowed her eyebrows, now concerned as a vehement expression crossed Five's face.

"Hey, Goldie, I have a question," a voice spoke up from behind her.

"She's not changing partners," Five instantly said as she turned around to face Diego.

"I wasn't going to ask her to." Diego shrugged nonchalantly before pointing towards the paper in his hand. "I just need help with one question."

"Don't you have a partner?" Five questioned, his eyebrows raised as he looked past Diego and toward his other siblings. "Why don't you ask them?"

"It's Klaus."

Five crinkled his nose. "What about Mom?"

"She's helping Vanya and Ben," Diego explained as he nodded towards the pair, where Grace was leaned over the desks and pointing towards their paper.

"Five, shut up." Elizabeth playfully slapped his arm before looking back towards Diego and giving him a smile. "Which question, Eggo?"

Diego sat down at the empty desk next to hers as he pointed to the question on the sheet of paper. "Number four."

"What?" Klaus called as he perked up from a few desks over.

"Not you, idiot, I'm talking about question number four," Diego responded as he rolled his eyes in irritation.

"Yes, get the answer to question four!" Klaus gave a lazy thumbs-up, nodding eagerly. "That's the one we need!"

"That's what I'm trying to do!" Diego exclaimed incredulously before rolling his eyes again and turning back to Elizabeth. "Anyway, how do you do it?"

Elizabeth didn't notice Five scowling as she leaned closer to Diego and explained the problem to him, nor did she notice the small wink Diego sent to Five as he stood up once she had finished.

He grinned. "Thanks, Goldie."

"No problem." Elizabeth smiled before turning back to Five and saying, "Fifty."

Five, who had been glaring at Diego's leaving back, snapped out of his trance and looked to her with a baffled expression. "Huh?"

"Fifty," she repeated as she pointed down to his paper, tapping on the question. "For the sixth one."

"Oh." He nodded quickly as he wrote it down, mumbling, "Right."

Elizabeth furrowed her eyebrows in concern, tilting her head as she inspected his face and worriedly questioned, "You good?"

Five gave her a reassuring smile that didn't seem to meet his eyes. "Fine."

—☾—

"Ooh, Luther's gonna be so mad when he sees these," Klaus giggled as he crouched down to be face-level with the clothes in the dryer. 

He leaned forward and snatched a couple of the button-up shirts that belonged to Luther and examined them thoroughly with a grin. What used to be white was now a vibrant purple, with no inch left uncoloured. 

"They're perfect!"

"You're dumb," Elizabeth laughed as she sat on top of the dryer. Her eyebrows furrowed as she peered down at the clothes, noticing some additional decorations. "Why . . . why are there holes in the shirt? Did you do that too?"

"Huh? No." Klaus tilted his head as he ran the fabric through his fingers, investigating the shreds.

Suddenly, footsteps approached from behind. Klaus looked up, his eyes widened in fear as he waited for the person to reveal themself.

Diego appeared, freezing in his spot as he noticed that someone was there. He relaxed when he saw that it was Klaus, and a grin came onto his face.

"You did this?" Klaus asked, raising the shirt for Diego to see.

"Obviously." Diego nodded as he strode towards the boy, the look on his face becoming proud as he inspected the shirt. "You made it purple?"

"Obviously," Klaus echoed. "Swear you won't tell on me when Luther loses his shit?"

A smirk grew on Diego's face. "Only if you swear not to tell on me."

"This isn't gonna end well," Elizabeth sighed as she leaned back, shaking her head as both boys sent a scowl her way.

Klaus stuffed the shirts back into the dryer and closed the door before getting to his feet. "Can't wait to hear Luther scream like a little girl."

"Yeah." Diego grinned, slapping him on the back. "Luther basically is a little girl."

Klaus laughed in agreement before following Diego out. They separated ways with the boy, and Elizabeth then asked, "Can we go hang out with Five now?"

Klaus groaned, glancing over his shoulder to make sure that Diego was out of earshot before he muttered, "No! That's all you ever want to do!"

"Why not? Aren't you two best friends?" she pointed out with a pout.

"Yeah, but you asking to hang out with him makes me want to not hang out with him," he complained as he began to walk through the hallway. "You always want to hang out with him."

"Because I like Five." She shrugged, folding her arms as she trailed behind him.

"Yeah, 'like,'" Klaus scoffed. "I think you mean love."

"Shut up, Klaus." Elizabeth rolled her eyes as they went into his room, and she sat down on top of his bed as he wandered towards his desk.

"Or what?" he laughed as he grabbed his flask from his drawer and unscrewed the cap. He took a drink from it before continuing, "You know, you don't have to hang out with me. Just go to him yourself if you're so lonely."

"But we never hang out anymore," she whined. "You only use me for my homework answers."

"Yeah, and?"

"Klaus!" 

Klaus giggled as she sent a light blast his way. "Oh, I'm just kidding, Queen Elizabeth. You're good for both your personality and your answers. But especially your answers."

She blasted him once more.

After he recovered from that, he laid back on his bed. "So, what do you wanna do then?"

"We can . . ." She scrunched her face before shrugging. "I don't know!"

"What, the only thing you can think of is being with Five?" Klaus asked incredulously as he leaned back against his desk. "How about 'Klaus, go annoy Luther' or 'Klaus, go take a nap' or 'Klaus, continue being sexy'?"

"Well, I'd love to grab our history textbook and we can—"

"Gross."

"Exactly," she sighed. "But I think—"

"What the hell?!"

Elizabeth and Klaus turned towards the door in alarm, their eyes wide. It seemed as though the screaming voice had come from the laundry room, and it sounded furious.

A grin crept onto Klaus's face as he got up and rubbed his hands together. He rolled his shoulders back, and told her, "Showtime, baby."

Elizabeth followed him as he quickly made his way to the other room. The other siblings crowded around the door, curious as to what Luther was so angry about. It wasn't long until their question was answered.

Luther marched up to them, holding one of many button-ups in his hand, the colour vivacious, and the holes prominent. His eyes stared daggers into each member as he looked around at them.

"Who the hell ruined my shirts?" he asked angrily, the grip on his shirt growing so tight that his knuckles were becoming white.

There was a moment of silence before both Klaus and Diego exclaimed simultaneously:

"It was Diego!"

"It was Klaus!"

Everyone turned to look at them with raised eyebrows, and Luther's glare only grew worse. 

Elizabeth shook her head, letting out a small laugh of amusement.

Klaus sighed as he looked at Diego. "See, now I'm just disappointed in the both of us."

Diego shrugged.

"Guys!" Luther clenched his jaw as his eyes narrowed at them. "I told you that I would kill you if you did this again!"

"Yet here we are" —Klaus looked around at the students before looking down at himself— "alive."

"You won't be in a second." Luther lunged towards him but was stopped when Allison grabbed onto his shoulders and pulled him backwards.

"Luther, we all know Klaus is dumb, stop before Dad finds out," she murmured to him, causing his lethal glare to lessen slightly.

"Agreed. You are very dumb," Elizabeth remarked as she stared at Klaus, who then stuck his tongue out at her.

He giggled as Luther stormed past him, and Luther threw the shirt in his direction. "You take it if you like it so much!"

"Thank you!" Klaus called after Luther as the angered boy marched towards his room. "I do like it!"

"Nice job, bro." Diego grinned as he walked up to Klaus, the two exchanging a fist bump. "We should plan it together next time. Make it worse. Rainbow tie-dye and make it a crop top."

"No one should leave you two alone together," Elizabeth sighed as she leaned against the wall, shaking her head as she watched them.

"Hell yeah," Klaus agreed with an excited nod. He looked around to make sure no one was listening before leaning in and whispering, "Who's our next victim?"

"Why don't you boys put this amount of effort into your schoolwork?" Elizabeth questioned loudly, although they both ignored her.

"Allison? Dad?" He gave a gasp of delight. "Luther again?"

"Science? Math?" She copied the gasp. "History again?"

Diego ruffled Klaus's hair, sending a grin his way. "Luther it is."