Cataclysm | Barry Allen

𝟬𝟭. pattern of life

CHAPTER ONE
it's born from just one single glance

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     𝐄laine Rhee hated the rain. I suppose, Starling City in its urban glory never suffers the brunt of it━the floods, and muddy roads, as opposed to rural areas. Yet for any working person, the rain will always be their worst enemy on the road and even up in the air with planes and such. Because harsh weather just seems to ruin everybody's day and it just gets in the way of everything. 

     So when she woke up that one rainy day and went to do her daily job, Elaine did not have a smile on her face. Her clothes were partially soaked from the rain as raindrops fell above her. With a click, the sable umbrella she was using shrank to its folded size as she entered the warehouse. She decided to take a look around Queen Consolidated's Applied Sciences Center with a deep furrow between her brows.

     For five years, Elaine had been a detective for the Starling City Police Department. One thing, her job sure doesn't get any easier. People just keep finding worse and worse things to do instead of staying away from them. Then again, I guess that's why people like her exist to do this time-consuming job which is to capture bad people and put them behind bars (some of them deserved to rot in there longer but the system is shit).

     "Well, you don't look bright," Captain Quentin Lance retorted as soon as he saw her shuffling towards them with a deep frown on her face.

     "I don't feel bright," Elaine muttered, briefly examining the crime scene. She found Oliver Queen, Felicity Smoak, and John Diggle around the police captain. "I came as soon as I could."

     Oliver sent her a small nod of acknowledgment. "Detective." 

     "Mr. Queen," Elaine muttered, mimicking his nod.

    Diggle looked over at the two of them with slight amusement. Not everybody knew that Elaine Rhee was also practically best buddies with the infamous vigilante rampaging all throughout Starling City and knew his real identity. They let it stay that way. She wasn't really the type to prance around and brag that she knew who the Vigilante was.

     "Have you done inventory?" Elaine asked, glancing over at the empty space where something had been sitting there. She stuffed her hands inside the pockets of her coat, nodding in the direction of the spot. "Because something really big had been taken right there."

     They took a walk around the warehouse, Elaine quietly deducting every piece of evidence she'd seen to form a conclusion. Then a worker showed them a clip from the security cameras. There was only one guy, and they believed there were more after him, but Elaine had an inkling feeling that wasn't the case with this one. The evidence was painfully pointing to one culprit. If you were Elaine, that is, who had seen far stranger things.

     She could tell Oliver was thinking the same thing, but neither of them said anything. They let Captain Lance think that Felicity Smoak, Oliver's assistant at his company, was the only one who could get in contact with the Starling City vigilante when in reality, he was in front of him the whole time.

     "He was the only guy we got on video. The rest of the crew must have come in after him."

     "Actually, it was only one guy."

     All eyes turned to the owner of the new voice. Elaine slightly narrowed her eyes, watching an unfamiliar guy walk nervously towards them with one hand inside his pocket. He didn't look any drier than she was from the rain that kept on outside the warehouse. His cropped brown hair was wet and so was the coat he wore over his flannel and jeans.