Alone

The Man:

Pulling back my bowstring, I fire an arrow. My arrow sails through the air before sticking to a building on the other side of the road. Taking a thick metal cable with it, I flip a switch on my bow, and the grip starts spinning, pulling me with it.

Jumping and swinging onto the side of the building, my bow then carries me up the rest of the way. Now on the roof, I walk to the ledge and drop onto my knee. Pulling out a pair of binoculars, I look around Hub City.

"Come on," I say, shaking my head at the sight. "We haven't been gone that long."

Not taking into account the 'time change' from the Lords of Order, it had only been six days since Harleen, Cheetah, Beetle, and Firestorm were in Hub City. Somehow, in less than a week, the city had turned even worse.

With my binoculars, I can see another robbery in progress. This time, it's a freaking bakery.

"What kind of rat bastard rob a bakery?"

I shake my head as I put my binoculars away, switching it out with another arrow. Firing it, my arrow flies through the air, carrying with it another metal cable. Jumping onto the cable and using my bow as a grapple, I slide down it before landing in front of the bakery's glass doors.

"Howdy," I say, walking into the bakery. As soon as they hear the bell rings, the four thieves turn around. Two of the thieves point their guns at me while the other two keep their focus on the cashier behind the counter. "Hey, do you by any chance have any apple pie or do you need time to bake them? I'm kind of in a hurry."

"What," one of the thieves asks.

As the two thieves aiming at me look at each other, I quickly grab an arrow from my quiver and load it into my bow. I fire the arrow, the arrow bursting into a large net that captures the first thief. He screams as he is thrown into the counter and knocked out. The second thief fires his shotgun but I run out of the way in time.

Running around a metal shelf, I jump and kick the metal shelf, knocking it into the second thief. He screams as the metal shelf hits him, also knocking him down. Everything on the shelf, all the loaves of bread, the cookies, the croissants, they all fall onto the thief.

The last two thieves, realizing I'm a threat, turn away from the cashier and toward me. Landing on my knee, I roll to the side as the two thieves shoot at the tilted floor. Rolling and pushing myself up, I turn and throw a kunai.

My kunai explodes once it is in between the two. It explodes and unleashes a thick cloud of black smoke. The thieves stop shooting and start screaming and coughing. Walking through the smoke, I hit the thieves with my bow, knocking them both out.

"Sorry about the tilted floor," I say, waving the smoke away. The cashier can't answer me. He's still coughing, hitting his chest. "And the metal shelves."

Noticing a few apple pies on a nearby display case, I pull out some cash and put it on the counter. Grabbing the pies as I walk out, I stop when I open the door. Hearing something, I turn and look at the glass door.

I scream when I see a monster with sharp teeth. Dropping the pies, I rush forward and punch the monster. Shattering the glass, breaking the door, glass flying everywhere, I look back up and see it.

The monster with sharp teeth is still there. Its pitch-black skin makes it almost invisible against the night sky and its sharpened claws look like it can cut through steel. As I look closer, I notice every time the monster breathes, there's a white mist. Like when a person breathes on a cold day. It doesn't take long for me to realize what I'm looking at.

"Ahh," I moan, shaking my head. Pulling out my fist, I look down and see the ruined apple pies. "Darn. Sorry about your door too."

I pull out some more cash and leave it by the broken door. Leaving the bakery, I fire another arrow and climb onto the rooftop of a nearby building. The second my feet land on the rooftop, I put my bow in my quiver. I then pull out my cell phone and my binoculars.

"Higgins," I start while scanning the city. "Add another tally mark. Robbery on Gaston's Street, Hupert Family's Bakery."

"Another," Higgin yells through my phone. "That's the fourth robbery this night alone. Oh, man. Hub City really needs some heroes."

"Yeah," I say, noticing some more trouble nearby. "Gotta go. I see the fifth tally mark."

"Wait, wait, wait," Higgin yells, stopping me from hanging up.

"What? I'm busy. I'm all alone tonight."

"Exactly! Why are you alone? Shouldn't you have someone by your side? A partner?"

I roll my eyes when I hear this.

"Higgins, you weren't there for the whole 'time change' ordeal."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. You explained everything to me. Lords of Order tried to change the timeline. Supergirl, Captain Cold, and Black Canary all worked with Superman. You and the others all charge into New Metropolis to save them and restore the timeline. The only reason I missed it all was because I was in another one of your bases when the Lords altered the timelines. What does that have to do with anything?"

"You weren't there, Higgins. Everyone was fighting, and I mean everyone. They're tired. Beaten up. They're resting for now."

"And what about you? Going by your own logic, shouldn't you be resting? I may have missed the whole time change thing but I get the feeling you weren't exactly sitting on the sidelines. If anything, you were the one doing the most fighting."

As Higgins says this, I open my mouth and press my thumb against my sharp teeth.

"I, uh, you're wrong, Higgins. We all fought."

Higgins is about to say something but I cut him off. Through my binoculars, I can see a massive fire spreading. It started in one building but is quickly moving to the adjacent buildings. If nothing is done, the fire will reach some houses.

Shooting an arrow as far as it can go, I practically fly through the air before landing on another rooftop. Reaching into my quiver, I stop when I remember something.

"Shoot. Wrong quiver. No foam arrow. Okay. Plan B!"

Grabbing a bunch of explosive arrows, I aim at the bottom of the burning buildings. Rapidly firing the explosive arrows, they explode within seconds of each other. My explosive arrows destroy the base of the building, causing it to collapse to the side. This causes a chain reaction. The collapsing building falls onto the adjacent buildings and buries the fire.

"Strange," I think, looking at the fire as it quickly dies down. I look closer at the buildings that caught ablaze. "These buildings don't look occupied. Even if people were living in them illegally, there's no way they would or could have started a fire that big. There would be no gas in the pipes."

Thinking it over and analyzing the scene of the crime, I then hear footsteps from behind. Turning around, I try to shoot an arrow but in the one nano-second of me loading my bow, I see Black Mask, Lady Shiva, and his gang all around me. Black Mask is holding what looks like a K11. Instead of shooting me with the assault rifle, Black Mask instead pumps the forend and shoots a whole grenade at me.

I still manage to shoot an arrow but I hit Black Mask's grenade instead. His grenade explodes and the explosive knocks me right off the rooftop.

The Doc:

"Ahh," I scream, slapping myself on the head. "Where is it? Where is it?"

I re-check my coat pockets. I open all the drawers in the infirmary again. I look under and on top of everything, but no matter where I look, I can't seem to find my teleporter.

"How could I lose it? How could I lose something so important? Ahh!"

I slap myself again before turning around.

"Anything?"

"No," Ms. Iris says, pushing herself up and dusting herself off. "Are you sure you didn't leave it in your room?"

"I haven't been to my room in almost five months. I've been sleeping in here. This is my room."

"Well, in that case, the teleporter isn't in your room. Unless you found one of The Man's secret components, threw it in there, and forgot about it."

I can't help but laugh a little when I hear this.

"Ms. Iris," I start, adjusting my glasses. "Overall, I haven't been in this base that much longer than you or anyone else here. Am I right?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"Well, in that short time, I have searched for any secret components. Do you know how many I've found?"

"No. How many?"

I make a big fat zero with my fingers.

"You can't be serious. I mean, practically every wall in here has a secret component in it, but you're telling me you've never found one?"

"Yes, and for the record, I haven't been the only one that had been searching. We've all been searching for secret levers and buttons but all we found are traps. Wait, hold on. Have you and Mr. Nelson not been searching? I mean, just a week ago, we were all gone. You two didn't search? You two didn't look around?"

I see Ms. Iris looking away while scratching the back of her head.

"Uhh," she says, clearing her throat. "Well, we did at first. But then Kent got trapped in some sort of small box. I guess we found a trap instead."

"Oh, I know that one. I fell for that one too. The crushing cube. I spent three hours in a shrinking box before The Man finally let me out."

This time, it's Ms. Iris who laughs a little. As she laughs, I can't help but smile. However, Ms. Iris's laugh doesn't last long. The infirmary's doors swing open and Supergirl walks in.

"Have you found it yet," she asks the second she can.

"No," I answer with a shake of my head. "I swear. I always leave the teleporter in my pocket. I don't put it anywhere else, but for some reason--"

"It's not there," Ms. Iris finishes.

"So how are we supposed to leave the base," Supergirl asks. "I mean, what if The Man needs our help?"

"Don't worry," I say, taking a step toward Supergirl. However, as I step toward her, she steps back. "There's still the big teleporter built into the wall. Remember? The one I used to teleport all of you back to Harleen's base in Gotham? I can use that. I just need to know The Man's location."

"Uhh," someone says from behind us. Turning around, I see the computer on the infirmary's desk turn on and a familiar silhouette appears. "That might be a problem."

"Mr. Higgins," I say, stepping toward the computer. "What do you mean by 'problem'? I thought you were keeping track of where The Man is. Shouldn't he be in Hub City?"

"Oh, he's in Hub City alright," Mr. Higgins states. "That's not the problem. The problem is that I can't track him anymore. I lost him."

"What do you mean by you can't track him," Supergirl asks. "What do you mean by you lost him?"

"I mean what I've said," Mr. Higgins answers. "I was tracking The Man via a signal he sent me but the signal suddenly died. It disappears off the map."

"It disappears," Supergirl repeats.

"It disappears," Mr. Higgins says again. "I don't know what it means but I get the feeling it doesn't mean things are peachy."

"Oh boy," I say.

"Listen," Higgins starts, "I know what The Man said, sort of, but beside you, Supergirl, is anyone else up? Can they help?"

"No," Supergirl answers. "It's just me but I think I'm more than ready. Besides, I need to talk to The Man about something."

"Whatever," Mr. Higgins says. "Just go! I'm getting a very bad feeling about this."

"Fine," I say, walking to the computer. "Mr. Higgins, send me The Man's last known coordinate. Supergirl, please follow me."

Mr. Higgins sent me The Man's last GPS location based on the tracker he mentioned. Numbers and letters appear in a small box on the screen, I write them down before heading to the teleporter in the wall.

"I'll see you later, Ms. Iris."

"See you later, Dr. Crane."

"Dr. Crane," I repeat to myself. "Ms. Iris just called me Dr. Crane. Not Scarecrow."

I feel myself smiling again.

Black Mask:

Reloading an explosive round into my assault rifle with a grenade launcher, I look back at Lady Shiva.

"Lady Shiva," I start, "Gather some men and go see if the fucker is dead. But make sure we still have a body. The bounty is only valid if there's a body to trade."

Lady Shiva nods and looks at my men. Six of them nod their own heads and follow after Lady Shiva as she walks to the ledge. However, still about six feet away from it, something up and grabs the ledge. As it grabs the ledge, it sends some sort of shockwave that knocks Lady Shive off her feet.

"What the hell," I say, seeing something massive hanging onto the ledge. It couldn't be this mysterious "man in the sunglasses" hand. This didn't look human. It looks like a monster hand.