It took a while for Sarin to find the apartment where she’d decided to stay during Black Canary’s task. Despite having spent the last year in Tokyo, she was taking a while to adjust to Star City; specifically, the streets being filled with fast moving vehicles filled people with places to be threw her. For a city under siege, it was still very much alive, she thought. The apartment was four walls of peeling, red-flower wallpaper and cockroaches the size of cats, but it was no matter--she would be actively surveying the city, more than she would be sleeping. She dropped her bag and took her bow and quiver out. The C-shape of the unstrung bow was beautiful to her, but she was excited to restring it and put it to use.

“Alright my friend.” Sarin fished around in the bag, pushing clothes around to find her bowstring. When she found it, she stood up with the bow and the string in hand, walked to the window and sat on the radiator.

“When Odysseus was in guise and challenged the men who would take his wife to a competition in stringing his bow, he was using his mastery against them.” Shado had told her the legend of Odysseus of Greece, while they sat with their unstrung bows. “Each man before him stood with the bow, believed himself to be the strongest, and failed to string it to the chiding of the others.” She’d brought the loop and knot through one end of the bow and put her foot atop it. “When finally Odysseus, dressed as an elderly beggar, had his turn to string the bow, and the men laughed at him, he sat, unlike those before him, and he strung it in two motions.” And with that, she’d brought back the arms and strung the bow. 

With her bow strung, Sarin set it to the side and began to undress. The ambient air felt damp and cold on her bare skin, and she felt a draft from the window. She frowned, and walked over to it to close the heavier curtains, but stopped when she saw herself standing near nude in the reflection. She turned to her side and traced her tattoo with a finger, reading it to herself. She turned more to see her bare shoulder and imagined a great red dragon riding down the curves of her body, remembering Shado’s Yakuza tattoo. She’d thought about getting a great wolf or bear herself in remembrance of her mentor, but with symbolism that better suited her.

Glare from headlights outside dissipated the reflection and she got into her gear. With the quiver slung over her shoulder and a tight grip on her bow, Sarin put up her hood and went out into the night.

---

She’d sat halfway up a fire escape when the plasma began burning through the air. After twenty minutes of inactivity and observation, Shade was surprised to see the police station light up so violently. An airship flew into the area out of which something or someone dropped with a lot of force, knocking one of the cyborgs down with a loud clang. [i]These must be them.[/i] Black Canary had said she must not interact with any metahumans or affiliated groups she came across, but she didn’t say that she couldn’t help. If they hadn’t noticed her sitting in the shadows, it wasn’t likely they’d notice a slight whistle in the wind, especially not with a frontal assault to distract them.

Shade fired three arrows into three of the mounted cannons on top of the station, each striking with a resonance and an electrical crack before the lights faded and the guns lowered into a resting position. She nocked three arrows and fired them into the lines of cyborg soldiers, each piercing the armor and disabling an extremity. Another three arrows, another three struggling soldiers. The six she’d hit directed their attention towards her and attempted to lift their weapons and aim. She sighed.

“No longer out of vision,” she said, jumping off the railing and firing an arrow with a bulbous tip into the crowd who aimed at her. When she hit the ground and rolled forward, there was an explosion as the arrow hit the one in the center, leaving scraps on the ground and a number of faces facing her.