Arrow's okay - a little on the naive side - but I just don't deal well with new kids. I guess this is a testimony to just how bad things have gotten. Under normal circumstances, Dispatch would have never paired me with someone who hadn't been in the field for at least six months.
Because of his powers - he's literally an arrow - there's not too much that I can really bring him in on. I mostly make him watch from the sidelines, where he proceeds to pout with his arms crossed.
This particular day, everything had been pretty quiet, which was good. I felt that my cycle was about to start, and that was never pretty.
Unlike human women who bleed to death at least once a month, mine only shows up once a year. Most women would be dancing with joy at the chance to have one cycle a year, as a matter of fact, a lot of them take all kinds of pills and crap to try to achieve this. I wish mine was that simple.
Mine only happens once a year - and granted - only lasts for a day, but for that one day, it's like I've been possessed by a demon from the lowest regions of hell. On this day I don't interact with others for their own safety.
So there I was, lying on the couch in pain, my powers going completely haywire. The only thing that seems to help is this concoction I discovered shortly after I came to this planet. I mix half a bottle of ArmorAll with a couple of spoonfuls of Lime Away. This would usually make me kind of mellow, but since giving birth to Kara, it just didn't cut it anymore.
The only thing I could really do was weather it out. According to the clock on the wall, I only had twelve hours left before it would be over. I couldn't wait. If I was real lucky, nobody would bother me today.
No such luck.
I rolled over and groaned when I heard my cell phone began to buzz. I know Dispatch was not calling me today of all days. I made sure to leave him a voice mail this morning when I couldn't reach him.
I snatched the phone up and flipped it open. "What in the HELL do you want!" I snapped.
I almost started laughing when I pictured the expression on his face. He cleared his throat before speaking. "I need you to take your team and go down to Northern Avenue. We've got a disturbance going on down there. "
"Tony...did you get my voice mail earlier?"
He was quiet for a moment. "Um...yeah, I did."
"And what part of that message did you not understand?"
He paused again. "Terra? Are you okay?" he sounded concerned. Woop-de-doo.
"No. I'm not." I sighed. "Why can't you call someone else?"
"There's no one else. Mack's powers got zapped the other day. Raz's still in the hospital and Tam isn't leaving her side. Everybody else is already off on a call, and I dare not leave headquarters with all that's going on."
I sighed. There was no way out of it. "Alright. I won't need the rest of the team."
"Terra, I don't want you going out there alone -," he started.
I hung up the phone, took a quick shower and got dressed. I heard the phone buzzing as Dispatch tried to call me back, but I ignored it. Gritting my teeth, I went upstairs to the roof and made it over to Northern Avenue in record time. I saw the disturbance before I even got close. Seven guys dressed up in Egyptian costumes were blasting out the front windows out of one of the smaller Smithsonian's.
Too bad they're bad guys, the one on the left is built like nobody's business....
"Yo fellas!" I yelled out. "It's a little too early for Halloween dontcha think!"
The bodybuilder started walking towards me. Looking him up and down, all I could do was shake my head. "Damn, what a waste," I muttered just before four tentacles stretched out to grab him and a couple of his friends. "I'd love to stay and draw this out with you guys, but I'm not at 100% today. So just cooperate, and I can go back home and back to bed."
Everything was under control. At least I thought so. Until the one I hadn't noticed before came up behind me. He stung me with something in my shoulder that caught me off guard. It didn't hurt me - just pissed me off enough to drop his friends.
I started to swing around to him when I noticed Arrow zooming in out the corner of my eye. "Dammit, Dispatch!" I muttered. Now I was going to have to babysit, too! One of the egyptian hotties got up and ran towards Arrow. I have to admit, the kid could fight. He had managed to knock all of the guys out and then turned towards me. I saw him kick his leg back against the building so that he could shoot over to me. That's when everything started going in slow motion.
He was flying across the grass to where I was when I saw a strange expression come across his face. The guy I was fighting with stepped out of the way, causing Arrow to run into the wall. Instead of the wall bursting open like it usually does, I heard something snap and he crumpled into a heap.
Forgetting about the guy I was fighting, I knelt down to check his pulse. Out the corner of my eye, I could see the others get up and run into the museum, coming out with something that looked like a canopic jar. I didn't care anymore.
We had just gotten our first casuality.
Arrow was dead.
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