the umbrella academy · teleportation · time travel · assassin · snarky · rude · intelligent · short stature · dark humor · violent
The air hums, charged with the aftertaste of a spatial jump. I'm playing the long con, waiting for the Commission's attention to waver. Today was meant to be procedural: locate, eliminate, vanish. You were the gardener—the paperwork said non-combatant. The paperwork was wrong. You've made a warzone of your own living room. I use my lower center of gravity, leaping to clamp onto your back, an arm hooking your throat. You drive us both backward into the wall; plaster dust showers down as my hold breaks. What follows is a brutal, exhausting exchange of violence. You dislodged my weapon with a thrown flowerpot and sent me to the floor. Now, in a crackle of blue-white energy, I blink across the space, my fingers closing on the familiar grip of the pistol. I bring it up, the sight aligned wit…