[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/l1W8cXJ.png[/img][/center] [i][color=Darkslateblue][sub]Star City, Sherwood Florist, Near dawn[/sub][/color][/i][hr][hr] [img]https://i.imgur.com/ifkdHYI.jpg[/img] The night was all but over when Dinah finally made it back to the florist. It had seemed like a good idea at first, operating out of the faux medieval-style tower that had once functioned as both her mother’s shop and the family home. Mom had left it to her and Sarah in the will, and with lil’ sis at college, and the shop long closed, there was never anyone about to clock the unsociable hours Dinah had been keeping. It had been convenient, having a place to bed down that she didn’t have to pay for. Rent prices in Star - even after the earthquake hit - were prohibitive, and her being a jobless millennial didn’t exactly endear her towards mortgage officers or prospective roommates. All that said the real reason Sherwood had initially been such an attractive base of operations was the fact that it was placed firmly in the Orchid Bay. Distance from the Glades had seemed like a good thing. It would give her some space think, to breath. Somewhere all the problems facing Star’s most downtrodden neighbourhood would seem smaller, less immediate. God, what an idiot she’d been. She realised now that it didn’t matter where she went, didn’t matter how many miles she covered, a part of her would always be down in the Glades, sunken in the filth and the grime and the hopelessness. Its corruption had stained her bone deep. All she’d done was ensure that her nightly commute was a lengthy bitch. She let herself into the tower, thinking that all she wanted to do now was grab a cold beer, take a hot shower, then hit the sack. Her legs were sore from tramping up and down deserted alleyways all night, while her throat ached like someone had drawn a cheese grater along the inside of her neck. Slowly. And repeatedly. An unwelcome side effect of using her Cry earlier that night, and just one more reason for her to keep its use to a minimum. The tower’s ground floor had once served as Sherwood Florist’s shop floor, and signs of that [i]‘lofty’[/i] purpose still lingered, even now, almost five years since a flower had been anywhere near the place. Shelving units were plants of all kinds had once sat proudly still dotted the floors, now covered by off-yellow dust sheets, ironically blanket in thick layers of dust. A circular cashier’s desk was placed in the middle of the floor, a bank of four ancient till machines placed at the four compass points hovered like old forgotten relics, seemingly waiting for a gentle touch to coax them back to life. The shop, once one of the busiest florists in the city, had become a mausoleum, her still refuge from the city. Or at least it was supposed to be, and yet she could clearly remember shutting the basement door before heading out earlier that night, and yet now it was hanging wide open. Dinah’s mind began to race while her heart picked up the tempo. Nobody was supposed to be here but her. Sarah wouldn’t have come back – she hadn’t liked being in this room when it had been fresh and vibrant, and those days were in the distant past now – and there wasn’t a reason for anyone else to have come … unless, of course, they were here for her. She hadn’t made the dent in Star City’s crime problem that should would have liked, had hardly done anything more than rough up a few Vertigo dealers and break a couple legbreaker’s legs. Could that have been enough to blip up on someone’s radar? She didn’t think so. Then again, what did she know about organised crime? Maybe this was just the way the criminals did business. Meet any infraction or insult with total retribution. Dry mouthed and sweaty palmed, she made her way down the basement stairs, flicking the light switch as she passed. If there was somebody down here, they seemed to like the dark. Dinah didn’t mind it herself, it wasn’t like she was scared or anything, but it would be stupid to go stumbling into shadows that might be hiding trained killers. Or that’s what she told herself, anyway. What was once a storeroom had become the Dinah’s vigilante sanctum. Ok, it wasn’t all that impressive to look at – yet – but she was starting to get quite attached to her chamber of secrets. The walls were covered with maps of Star City, pictures of known drug dealers and gangsters, a few posters from her mom’s punk days, even a flier from one of Ted’s later fights against some up and coming amateur called; Battlin’ Jack Murdock. A huge wooden desk dominated one quarter of the circular space. It was one of the few pieces of furniture already down here when she first started using the space a few weeks back, but she couldn’t remember her parents ever owning it. Her busted laptop sat there, unlikely to get used anytime soon. Dinah wasn’t all that computer-literate, as Sarah would put it. She preferred dinosaur copies, hard files, that kind of thing. In keeping with that there were boxes of her dad’s case files dumped around the room, forming haphazard towers and patchy walls. Quentin would squirm at his daughter’s devil-may-care attitude towards filing, though she had never seen the problem with organised chaos. She always managed to find what she was looking for eventually. Standing in that basement now, with any number of killers potentially skulking in amongst the hiding places those files afforded, she suddenly realised the wisdom of dad’s system. She took a couple of steps into the room, eyes open and suspicious, ears straining for any tell-tale sound. The rasp of a blade being drawn, the cock of a gun, hell, even the clenching of a fist would be nice. Somehow the silence seemed so much worse, so much more dangerous, than any of the above. It was a blank white page on which she could illustrate her own horror, and right now they were a lot less welcome than reality. “I should warn you,” she said aloud, her voice remarkably steady. The way she was feeling, jittery and fearful, excited and anxious all at once, she never would have put money on sounding [i]‘steady’[/i]. “I’ve had a long night and wasn’t in the best of moods before all this. If you come out now, I’ll con –” She never got the chance to finish the sentence before the guy made his move. Call it paranoia. Call it dumb luck. Call it a sixth sense. Call it whatever you damn well please, but he struck, and somehow Dinah was ready for it. Before she realised what she was doing she dropped into a crouch, balanced delicately upon the balls of her feet, feeling rather than seeing the fist that tore through the air where her head had moments ago vacated. Instinct honed through endless hours of training and sparring kicked in, her body acting without conscious direction, doing what it needed to do to keep her in the fight, to make sure she was still standing at the end of it. She stepped back tight into her assailant, real tight, so close she fancied she could feel his breath on the back of her neck, one arm grabbing onto the wrist of his extended arm, while the other simultaneously snaked up and over the back of his head. He realised too late what was happening, and before he could stop her she was throwing him over her shoulder. He flew for a heartbeat, before crashing into a stack of her dad’s case files. Papers exploded outwards like doves in a John Woo movie. She followed in quick, eager to end this before it had a real chance to begin. In the moment she used to close the distance she studied her foe. He was big, she realised that even as he lay on his back. Maybe 6’ 4”, with viciously wide shoulders and hands the size of tennis rackets. He was dressed all in black, a balaclava covering his face, an almost stereotypical bad-guy goon. Inspection over, she continued with the fight. A quick step forward eased into a spin, that moved effortlessly into a pirouette, that ended in a flawless hook kick. She’d been complimented on her long legs plenty in the past, but it was only moments like this that she was truly thankful for them. The hook kick was a tricky manoeuvre to pull off, powerful as a locomotive if it landed, but difficult to connect with, and a damn mess if it missed. She was confident though, with the bad guy on his ass, that she wasn’t going to miss. Then again, she’d been wrong before. The assailant was fast. Faster than she wanted him to be. In one flowing move he sprang to his knees, got a guard up – a philly shell, she noted – and rolled the kick of his shoulder. Suddenly she was the one off-balance, and he punished her for it, a straight jab, right in the gut. He shouldn’t have gotten much power from it, not from a crouch, but to Dinah it still felt like getting kicked by a mule. She had to back off, get some space, otherwise this was going to end badly. She conceded a few feet, but he was quick to follow her. Damn, but she hated being the one on the defensive. She threw a couple jabs, but he threw up a high guard and knocked them aside with contemptuous ease. Those forearms of his were knotted with muscle as thick and unyielding as old, weathered oak, and it was easy to imagine her hits were costing her more than they cost him. He knew what he was doing, that much was clear. A real pro. Whoever had paid for him was really getting their money’s worth. Suddenly she realised she couldn’t wait for him. If she kept backing up he would just walk her down, and if it went to a straight slug fest she didn’t like her chances. She didn’t wait for him though, surging forwards herself. Give no quarter, take no prisoners. So what if he could fight, so could she. And she had to bet that she could do it better. A vicious exchange of blows followed, punches and strikes raining almost too fast for the eye to follow. Dinah dodged what she could, blocked what she couldn’t, using her palms and forearms to guide aside the hits she didn’t want landing. She managed a few counter-punches of her own, but if her opponent felt them he didn’t let on. Somewhere along the way she felt a smile tugging at her lips. Yeah, that’s right, an honest to goodness smile. God, but this was living. When was the last time she’d had a chance to let loose like this? Of course, like all good things it couldn’t last, and this time was no exception. For Dinah it came to a screeching halt when she recognised that right jab the masked man kept throwing, aiming to keep her on the defensive, to let his size and reach do all the hard work for him. She’d seen that jab a million times growing up. Heard a man she thought of as a father extol its virtues time and time again. All of a sudden, she decided that this had gone on for long enough. She wanted answers, and she wanted them now. She stepped in quick, feinting in a low body blow. The assailant hunched in tight, not so much dropping his guard – he was way too experienced to fall for a weakass trick like that – but lowering it just enough to leave the opening she wanted. Viper quick her hand nipped forwards, clutching a handful of her opponent’s black mask and yanking it clear. She leapt back, leaving the old boxer blinking in the bright, harsh light. Her arms folded tight across her chest, but her wide stance and splayed legs signified that she wasn’t done fighting yet. Not by a long shot. “What the hell are you playing at Ted!?” [center][img] https://i.imgur.com/2vCKYwJ.jpg [/img][/center]