In Wonderland

Rabbit Holes

~August 4th~

~Earth 16~

~Artemis~

~Palo Alto~

3 AM. 47 minutes. 8 seconds. And 1 month since Wally di- left. Left me alone, all by myself, in a big apartment and- you know what I'm going out. I am not going to be sad. I refuse to miss Wally. The love of my life. I'm going out. I'm going out. I. Am. Going. Out.

I get up and walk over to my untouched closet. I've haven't been in my closet since Wally died, simply because there was too many memories. Wally's tux from prom, Wally's Flash onezie (because we're mature adults), Wally's- well everything. So I've been surviving off of the 3 pants, 2 tops, 2 pairs of underwear and one sports bra. Because Wally is a 21 year old boy, never cleans up, and it's his girlfriend's bra. All stable reasons for not cleaning up.

I open the painted white doors and look at the green uniform and remember I swore to never wear that again, and I simply cannot do that to myself, there are so many shitty things in my life I can't add breaking another promise to that list.

 And then I see it. Pushed into the back of the closet, away from me, hiding those miserable months in the  back, under several sweaters and a scarf. Those months seem like a day at the beach compared to right now... But then again the beach seems like a shit-hole currently, because of the first time me any Wally first met. But the orange and black leather stares up at me, like some type of sick halloween decoration. 

But it hits me, I am not Artemis. I'm my dark twisted side that comes out when I'm not with Wally. I'm the little abused and aggressive girl who always has to tug down her skirt a little bit on the first day of school so people can't see her scars. That's me without Wally. And that's Tigress.

~Earth 16~

~Artemis~

~Gotham City~

Gotham City is the most disgusting, dangerous places on this earth, it's breeding grounds for criminals and arsonists. Perfect for my mood right now.

There is a cobra venom shipment coming through at the docks in the bay. Filled with cliche villians in wool hats and leather jackets. Like I said, I need some cliche ass-kicking in my life right now.

"Hey, Daniel, can you come over and help me with this really quickly?" One of the perps says in a thick canadian accent. 

Taking the chance to be badass in a public setting I drop down and reply to the question obviously not directed at me. "Well my name isn't Daniel, so I guess I can't help you with that." I respond. Ugh, that sounded way better in my head. If Wally was here- no you came here to forget about him so stop! I don't even waste an arrow on the dude I just punch him in the face. They should really hire some better cronies, this dude is a really bad fighter, one hit and he's out.

I move on hitting every single person, I only end up using roughly a quarter of the arrows in my quiver before getting onto the deck of the transport ship. It seems like everyone was unloading the shipment so- "Well hello, Tigress."

I spin around, quickly taking an arrow out of my quiver and facing the voice. Black Manta. The big bad underwater crime boss. "I missed you, now I have no one to slowly ruin my life without you." He steps out of the shadows, showing me the unmasked face of the man who hired me as Tigress. Who made me Tigress.

"You need to pay for what you've done Tigress- or should I call you Artemis." He watches me flinch as he says that name and I expect him to smile but he just stares at me cold and uncaring. "You took everything from me. My son, my ship, almost even my life; but I have to take more from you, nothing can ever compare to the pain you caused me."